Archives - YBCA

Films

New Queer Cinema x Trans New Weird: Teen Death Drive

Presented by Frameline & YBCA

Saturday, June 6, 2026, 1 PM

See “Totally Fucked Up” (1993) and Jane Schoenbrun’s “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” (2021)

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Films

New Queer Cinema x Trans New Weird: Queer Vigilantes

Presented by Frameline & YBCA

Saturday, May 16, 2026, 1 PM

In “Chocolate Babies” and “T Blockers,” Stephen Winter and Alice Maio Mackay grapple with what it means to be left alone to fight the powers that be.

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Films

New Queer Cinema x Trans New Weird: Who Owns Our Image?

Presented by Frameline & YBCA

Saturday, April 18, 2026, 1 PM

Todd Haynes’ “Poison” and Vera Drew’s “The People’s Joker” twist the canon of beloved American narrative conventions into organisms that reflect defiant, new ways to represent queer life.

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Films

Celebration of Iranian Cinema: Roxana

Presented by UCLA Film & Television Archive, Farhang Foundation & YBCA

Sunday, January 26, 2025, 2 PM

In Roxana, writer-director Parviz Shahbazi builds an arresting take on the experience of young Iranians struggling to find their way and start their lives in a world where one misstep can have the direst of consequences.

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Films

Celebration of Iranian Cinema: In the Land of Brothers

Presented by UCLA Film & Television Archive, Farhang Foundation & YBCA

Saturday, January 25, 2025, 2 PM

In the film In the Land of Brothers, directors Alireza Ghasemi and Raha Amirfazli tell a powerful story across three interconnected episodes of an Afghan refugee family’s generational struggle to make a home in Iran.

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Films

Celebration of Iranian Cinema: Empty Nets

Presented by UCLA Film & Television Archive, Farhang Foundation & YBCA

Friday, January 24, 2025, 6:30 PM

In Empty Nets, the rarefied but rough-and-tumble world of caviar smuggling is the milieu for writer-director Behrooz Karamizade’s feature debut.

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Films

California Newsreel – Forward to the 6th Decade

Presented by YBCA

Saturday, January 13, 2024, 3–5 PM

Experience a selection of films from the past 20 years advancing the causes of health and social justice, led by outgoing co-director Cornelius Moore and incoming executive director Rachel Poulain of California Newsreel.

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Films

fragments: films by Emily Chao

Bay Area Now 9 Looping Film Program

January 3–31, 2023, 11 AM-5 PM

A cycle of four films from filmmaker Emily Chao that offer fragments of memories of people and places, experiences both shared and private, and new considerations of familiar views.

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Public Programs

Spectral Evidence

A showcase of expanded cinema

Saturday, December 9, 2023, 12–2 PM

A dynamic film program from Shapeshifter Cinema, featuring three sets of kinetic, multi-projector, and multimedia performances.

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Films

Prismatic Permutations: Expanded Cinema Performances

Bay Area Now 9 Looping Film Program

December 1–30, 2023, 11 AM–5 PM

An hour-long program of select expanded cinema performances that have been presented by Shapeshifters Cinema over its 11-year history.

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Films

Canyon Cinema Across Time and Space

Bay Area Now 9 Looping Film Program

November 1–30, 2023, 11 AM–5 PM

A selection of films from the Canyon Cinema collection tracing six decades of experimental filmmaking in the Bay Area.

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Public Programs

APAture 2023: Unearthing, a film showcase

In partnership with Kearny Street Workshop

October 29, 2023, 2–4:30 PM

A film showcase featuring Adamu Chan, as a part of Kearny Street Workshop’s annual multi-disciplinary arts festival, APAture.

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Public Programs

San Francisco Cinematheque: Contemporary Views from the Bay Area

In partnership with San Francisco Cinematheque

October 21, 2023, 3–5 PM

Nine works by ten contemporary Bay Area filmmakers, a cross-section of the Bay Area’s ever-vibrant multi-generational community curated by Steve Polta, artistic director of San Francisco Cinematheque.

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Public Programs

Canyon Cinema: Contemporary Bay Area Film

In partnership with Canyon Cinema

October 14, 2023, 3–5 PM

An afternoon of contemporary Bay Area works on film and video from the Canyon Cinema catalog, curated and hosted by executive director Brett Kashmere.

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Films

San Francisco Cinematheque’s CROSSROADS Film

Bay Area Now 9 Looping Film Program

October 6–31, 2023, 11 AM–5 PM

Experience selections from fourteen years of CROSSROADS, San Francisco Cinematheque’s annual film festival in this ongoing daily screening.

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Films

I Hear a Butterfly

Presented by YBCA

Sunday, June 25, 2023

This new short film shares vibrant stories of migration and resilience.

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Festival

SF Urban Film Fest 2022: Urban Futures

Presented by SF Urban Film Fest & YBCA

March 9–March 13

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Films

Diasporas of Resilience

Presented by SF Urban Film Fest & YBCA

Saturday, October 2, 2021

An afternoon of film programs and artist talks around immigration to the South of Market, the power of mutual aid, and the power of writing a community narrative.

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Films

SoMa Social Landscapes

Presented by SF Urban Film Fest & YBCA

Saturday, September 25, 2021

An afternoon of exploring the social landscapes of the South of Market with artist talks, film screenings, and panel discussions.

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Films

Generations of Filipinx Power

Presented by SF Urban Film Fest & YBCA

Saturday, August 28, 2021

A night of artist talks, one-act plays, and film screenings celebrating Filipinx power in South of Market.

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Festival

SF Urban Film Fest 2021

Presented by SF Urban Film Fest & YBCA

February 14–21, 2021

This year’s festival explores enduring injustices and environmental destruction alongside the resilience of neighborhoods and the communities that fill them.

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Films

Jeffrey Gibson: Nothing is Eternal

Presented by YBCA and the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art

October 30–November 3, 2020

Conceived during this pandemic era, the immersive video work depicts the American flag in unsettling stillness, as a marker of territory, and projected onto bodies, while set to a heartrending soundtrack.

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Films

Pocket-Size Cinema in Spain: Experiments in Super-8

Presented by San Francisco Cinematheque

February 27, 2020, 7:30 PM

A program of contemporary and historic films made in Super-8mm by Spanish filmmakers.

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Films

let me tell you what home looks like

Presented by SF Urban Film Fest & YBCA

February 8, 2020, 7 PM

As cities gentrify, black artists and activists create new narratives, shift the audience gaze, amplify unheard voices, and showcase their resilience.

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Films

Diaspora: Identity and the Pathos of Global Labor

Presented by SF Urban Film Fest & YBCA

February 6, 2020, 6:30 PM

Films and a panel discussion explore personal experiences of diaspora within the global labor market.

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Films

Be Water: Civil Disobedience and the Fight for Democracy in Hong Kong

Presented by SF Urban Film Fest & YBCA

February 3, 2020, 6:30 PM

Alex Yong Kang Chow co-curates this event looking at the Hong Kong demonstrations from the lived experience of the student protestors.

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Festival

SF Urban Film Fest 2020

Presented by SF Urban Film Fest & YBCA

February 3–8, 2020

Exploring Place and the Populist Revolt, investigating how cities are ground zero for the struggle to find or hold on to a place, for both incumbents and newly arrived.

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