San Francisco Cinematheque is a

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

-based

film society A film society is a membership-based club where people can watch screenings of films which would otherwise not be shown in mainstream cinemas. In Spain, Ireland and Italy, they are known as "cineclubs", and in Germany they are known as "filmclubs" ...

for artist-made cinema. It was created in 1961 by a group of filmmakers, including

Bruce Baillie Bruce Baillie (September 24, 1931 – April 10, 2020) was an American experimental filmmaker. He was born in Aberdeen, South Dakota in 1931 and died on April 10, 2020 in Camano Island, Washington. Work Baillie founded Canyon Cinema in San Francis ...

and

Chick Strand Mildred "Chick" Strand (December 3, 1931 – July 11, 2009) was an American experimental filmmaker, "a pioneer in blending avant-garde techniques with documentary".Diana Burgess Fuller, Daniela Salvioni, ''Art/Women/California 1950-2000: Paralle ...

. This screening program grew into

Canyon Cinema Canyon Cinema is an American nonprofit organization for distributing independent, avant-garde, and artist-made films. After starting in the 1960s as an exhibition program, it grew to include a nationwide newsletter and a distribution cooperative. ...

before being split off into a sister organization, originally named the Foundation for Art in Cinema, during the 1970s. San Francisco Cinematheque is one of the

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

's longest-running outlets for exhibiting

experimental film Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, parti ...

. It produces the annual film festival Crossroads.

History

began as a film exhibition outlet in

Canyon, California Canyon, formerly known as Sequoya, is an unincorporated community located near the border of Contra Costa and Alameda counties, in the U.S. state of California. It is situated between Oakland and Moraga in the San Francisco Bay Area. The communit ...

. Its early programs were programmed Bruce Baillie, Chick Strand, and Emory Menefee and featured a mixture of experimental work and conventional narrative films. After starting in Baillie's backyard, they struggled to find a regular venue until Stiles Hall at

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

became its first long-term venue. As Canyon grew during the 1960s to include a distribution office and nationwide newsletter, its exhibition program came to focus on experimental film and appeared at new venues around the Bay Area. It moved into a church on Union Street in 1967 and took on the name Canyon Cinematheque. The film department at

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

had a theater built in 1969, which became the primary venue for Cinematheque screenings for several decades. Canyon Cinema obtained

nonprofit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

status in California but was denied by the federal government because its distribution program made a profit for its members. As a result, Canyon restructured its operations, and in 1976 the Foundation for Art in Cinema was formed as a sister organization. Under Steve Anker and David Gerstein in the 1980s, the foundation took on the name San Francisco Cinematheque. The organization expanded its scope with its first

video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting ...

programs in 1984 and ''Cinematograph'', a journal edited by local artists, the following year. The Cinematheque moved to the

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) is a multi-disciplinary contemporary arts center in San Francisco, California, United States. Located in Yerba Buena Gardens, YBCA features visual art, performance, and film/video that celebrates local, natio ...

as its primary venue in 1994 and then to

California College of the Arts California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996 it opened a second campus in San ...

in 1999.

Description

San Francisco Cinematheque exhibits artist-made cinema with around 35 screenings each year in the Bay Area. It publishes the ''Cinematograph'' journal of film and media art. It also has a collection of thousands of publications, periodicals, and files in its research archive.

Crossroads

In April 2010, San Francisco Cinematheque presented the first Crossroads, a film festival for artist-made film and video work. Crossroads has since become an annual festival offering a major platform for performance-based work and younger or lesser-known filmmakers.

References

External links

*
San Francisco Cinematheque program notes from 1984 to 2000
on the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

{{Authority control Cinema of the San Francisco Bay Area Organizations established in 1961 Experimental film Film organizations in the United States Non-profit organizations based in San Francisco