Canyon Cinema: Contemporary Bay Area Film

Screenings & Films

Canyon Cinema: Contemporary Bay Area Film

In partnership with Canyon Cinema |

October 14, 2023, 3–5 PM

Join us for an afternoon of contemporary Bay Area works on film and video from the Canyon Cinema catalog, curated and hosted by executive director Brett Kashmere. Local filmmakers featured in the program include Janis Crystal Lipzin, Emily Chao, Toney Merritt, TT Takemoto, and Nathaniel Dorsky, among others.

Curated by BAN9 Curatorial Counsel member Gina Basso, the ongoing BAN9 Film series will span the entirety of the exhibition, featuring acclaimed Bay Area filmmakers, collectives, and new media artists. Offerings will vary monthly, reflecting BAN9’s curatorial themes and diving into the breadth and depth of the Bay Area’s vibrant film scene by highlighting the local organizations and individuals who contribute to the shape and form of the region’s rich cinematic landscape.

Films

Caracole (for Cecilia) (Nathaniel Dorsky, 4 min, 2019,16mm, 18fps)

As Long As There Is Breath (Emily Chao, 2 min, 2020, digital file)

Lion in the Wind (TT Takemoto, 5 min, 2023, digital file)

Some Mistakes I Have Made (Janis Crystal Lipzin, 19.5 min, 2021, digital file)

A Fire’s Poem (Toney Merritt, 4 min, 2022, digital file)

Fire Fly Eye (Kerry Laitala, 7 min, 2020, digital file)

Dialogues (Nathaniel Dorsky, 17.5 min, 2022, 16mm, 18 fps)

Gina Basso

Gina Basso is a San Francisco-based independent film programmer of experimental, artist-made, and non-fiction film and video works and thematic narrative film series. She has organized film programs for local cinemas including The Roxie Theater, The Castro Theater, and Alamo Drafthouse New Mission Theater. She has curated programs for McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, Design Within Reach, Hunter’s Point Shipyard and the Northwest Film Forum and is the former film curator for San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In her creative practice, she uses video to explore transitional or altered states of being. Through moving collage, handmade animation, and sound she draws on a rich tradition of experimentation with various forms, materials, and processes, combining found and original footage to harness the energy of poetic montage. Her video work has been presented at CROSSROADS Festival, Artist Television Access, HAXAN Film Festival, and Antimatter Experimental Film Festival.

Canyon Cinema is dedicated to educating the public about independent, non-commercial, experimental, avant garde, and artist-made moving images. They manifest this commitment by providing access to their unrivaled collection to universities and cultural organizations worldwide, as well as cultivating scholarship and appreciation of artist-made cinema. They ensure the experience of rare film works in their original medium while also reaching new audiences through their growing digital distribution program.

Canyon Cinema’s unique collection of artist-made films—comprised of digital media, 8mm, Super 8, 16mm, and 35mm prints—traces the vital history of the experimental and avant-garde filmmaking movements from 1921 to the present. With a strong emphasis on American West Coast and San Francisco Bay Area filmmakers, they are the access point to 3,400 groundbreaking works representing 280 artists.

Bay Area Now 9 is curated by Martin Strickland, Director of Curatorial Initiatives, and Fiona Ball, independent curator; under the artistic leadership of Amy Kisch, Head of Art + Public Programming; and developed with the inaugural YBCA Curatorial Counsel of curators, artists, activists, and cultural workers working across the Bay Area’s creative disciplines and communities: Erina Alejo, Gina Basso, Jason Bayani, Mina Girgis, Candace Huey, José Ome Navarrete Mazatl, Aay Preston Myint, and Lehua Taitano.

The BAN9 YBCA project team also includes Yoni Asega, Manager of Exhibition Design; David Tim, Head Preparator, Project Design; Bella Manfredi, Senior Preparator, Multimedia + Graphics; O Soo Vegh, Exhibition Project Manager + Registrar; Rea Lynn de Guzman, Manager of Public + Educational Programs; Flavia Mora, Public + Educational Programs Coordinator; and Cori Lucas, Community + Program Event Manager.

YBCA is grateful to the preparator team who made this exhibition possible: Isaiah Acosta, Amy Bergstein, Micha Dudgeonwood, Owen Goodwin, German Hoyle, Calvin Jones, Linden Julien-Lehr, Lauren Kenwood, Benjamin Leon, Maren Mouhanna, Éamon McGivern, Christian Neill, David Prigge, and Kelsey Westphal.

YBCA Programs are made possible in part by the City and County of San Francisco, MacKenzie Scott, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC), #StartSmall, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Marilyn Conrad Trust, New England Foundation for the Arts, California Arts Council, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, William G. Irwin Charity Foundation, The Bernard Osher Foundation, The Sato Foundation, Gaia Fund, Office of Mayor London N. Breed, San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development, Headlands Center for the Arts, ICA San Francisco, Bay Area Mind and Music Society, GitHub, Harvey and Leslie Wagner Foundation, McNabb Foundation, Raymond James Charitable, Savant Group Charitable Foundation, The Building Works, Fremont Group Foundation, and YBCA Members.

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