About us
Meet others who deliberately seek out challenging foreign, avant-garde, and experimental films screened in San Francisco or Berkeley. After each film, we will get together for conversation at a cafe.
If you, like me, also enjoy thought-provoking literature, check out my Classic Literature and Cafes Club: http://www.meetup.com/Classic-Literature-and-Cafes
Upcoming events
2
Hans-Jürgen Syberberg’s "Our Hitler"
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2155 Center Street, Berkeley, CA, USJoin us at Berkeley's Pacific Film Archive when we see German director Hans-Jürgen Syberberg’s rarely screened masterpiece.
Our Hitler. NOTE: It is highly recommended that you purchase tickets in advance for this 2-part, 7-hour-long film.“The third film in Hans-Jürgen Syberberg’s Wagnerian trilogy—preceded by Ludwig: Requiem for a Virgin King (1972) and Karl May (1974), about the founding of modern Germany—Our Hitler uses a series of stylized tableaux before back projections, filled with references to German history and mythology. With one of the most varied and ambitious soundtracks ever made, we hear strains of Wagner, Beethoven, Mozart, Nazi marches, American radio shows, and Hitler’s broadcasts. Der Führer is identified with such figures from film history as Charlie Chaplin’s Great Dictator, Dr. Caligari, Napoleon, Wagner’s ghost, and Peter Lorre’s child murderer in Fritz Lang’s M.
“Syberberg assumes importance both for his art (the art of the twentieth century: film) and for his subject (the subject of the twentieth century: Hitler). The assumptions are familiar, crude, plausible. But they hardly prepare us for the scale and virtuosity with which he conjures up the ultimate subjects: hell, paradise lost, the apocalypse, the last days of mankind. . . . Syberberg offers a spectacle about spectacle: evoking ‘the big show’ called history in a variety of dramatic modes—fairy tale, circus, morality play, allegorical pageant, magic ceremony, philosophical dialogue, Totentanz—with an imaginary cast of tens of millions, and, as protagonist, the Devil himself” (Susan Sontag)—Pacific Film ArchivePacific Film Archive Tickets, Information, and Directions: https://bampfa.org/event/our-hitler
Fassbinder and the New German Cinema (March 6 – May 17): https://bampfa.org/program/Fassbinder-New-German-Cinema
1:00 Meet at PFA's Box Office (2155 Center Street) to purchase or pick up tickets.
The film starts at 1:30
Parts I + II = 229 mins, with a 15-min intermission between partsOne-hour dinner break
Parts III + IV = 200 mins, with a 10-min intermission between parts.
9:00 After the film we will meet at Elaichi cafe on 2161 Allston Way for conversation.
3 attendees
Free Screening: A Radical Thread (2026) + Q&A with Director Jeanne Finley
San Francisco Public Library Main, Lower Level, Latino/Hispanic Room, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, CA, USThe San Francisco Public Library screens A Radical Thread (2026) as part of its Everybody's Climate 2026 program series.
In this soulful, gorgeous new documentary by Jeanne C. Finley, a back-to-the-land community fights off corporate Goliaths intent on environmental devastation while using the same collective ethos to stitch an 83-foot tapestry that visualizes their story.
Set against the dramatic scars of 19th century hydraulic gold mining, A Radical Thread follows a Sierra Foothills back-to-the-land community as they invent national models of sustainability in their fight against the corporate goliaths of mining, logging and damming. The community's 17-year collaborative project stitching an 83-foot tapestry visualizes the Ridge's story in twelve narrative embroidered panels. Now, as they face their greatest threat of all, climate-driven wildfires, they pass their knowledge of environmental justice to the next generation.
"A Radical Thread beautifully weaves together the stories, told through a set of tapestries, of poets, back-to-the-land settlers, and the region's original Native peoples along the San Juan Ridge near the Yuba river California. Despite waves of disruption - from the Gold Rush to mining and now climate-driven wildfires - this film highlights a community's deep resilience and enduring connection to place.--Thomas Kersen, Associate Professor of Sociology, Jackson State University
Director: Jeanne C. Finley
NR, 70 mins., 2026. Subtitles (SDH) in EnglishPlease stay for the post-screening Q&A with director Jeanne Finley.
More info about the film: https://sfpl.org/events/2026/07/26/film-radical-thread
More info about Everybody's Climate 2026: https://sfpl.org/everybodysclimate12:45 Meet in SFPL's Latino Room (lower level) at 100 Larkin St.
1:00 The film starts at 6 p.m.
2:15 After the film we will stay for a brief post-screening Q&A with director Jeanne Finley.2 attendees
Past events
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