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
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František Vláčil’s "Valley of the Bees"
Roxie theater, 3125 16th street, san francisco, CA, USJoin us when we see lengendary Czech director František Vláčil’s newly restored classic, Valley of the Bees (1968). NOTE: Consider purchasing your tickets in advance at roxie.com.
“While his name lacks the recognition of other Eastern European filmmakers, writer / director / occasional actor František Vláčil could be considered among the greatest motion picture practitioners on the strength of his adaptation of Marketa Lazarová alone. Yet his follow-up, The Valley of the Bees [Údolí včel], is a similarly stunning period-piece of archetypal drama (and, like its predecessor and other works by the filmmaker, features an extraordinary score by Zdeněk Liška). In the thirteenth century, a young man reluctantly joins the Teutonic order at the behest of his father. During his travels, he fraternizes with a former combatant of the Crusades. However, life as a member of the order is not quite as it is popularly portrayed and the young knight opts to escape. His devoutly religious friend, however, wants him to return and will see to it that he does. Nothing good can come from these disagreements.”—Program notes
More info on the Roxie Theater: roxie.com
2:40 Meet at the Roxie Theater to purchase tickets and take our seats.
The film starts at 3:00.
5:00 After the film we will meet at Pancho Villa Taqueria (3071 16th St.) for conversation.3 attendees
Satyajit Ray’s "The Music Room"
Yerba Buena Center, 701 Mission San Francisco, CA 94103, San Francisco, CA, USJoin us for an afternoon screening of Indian director Satyajit Ray’s The Music Room (Jalsaghar) (1958). NOTE: Please purchase your tickets in advance at ybca.org. The screening room is small and the screening will likely sell out. Free admission to YBCA’s art galleries is included with your ticket, so you may wish to arrive early.
“In The Music Room (Jalsaghar), director Satyajit Ray brilliantly evokes the crumbling opulence of a fallen aristocrat (played by the beloved Chhabi Biswas) desperately clinging to a vanishing way of life. At the heart of his world is the music room where he once hosted lavish concerts—now a shadow of its former self, grand and ghostly. A showcase for some of India’s most celebrated musicians of the era, the film echoes GaHee Park’s aesthetic universe in its incandescent rendering of tradition meeting modernity, of social ritual, and of time, memory, and identity folded into one another.”—Program notes
More info on YBCA’s screening: https://ybca.org/event/the-music-room-through-an-open-window-film-series/
1:30 Meet at YBCA Box Office (701 Mission St. at Third) to purchase tickets and take our seats. The film starts at 2.
3:40 After the program we will meet for conversation at The Grove (690 Mission St. @ 3rd St.) for refreshments and conversation.2 attendees
Visconti's "White Nights"
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2155 Center Street, Berkeley, CA, USJoin us at a screeing of Italian director Luchino Visconti’s adaptation of a classic Dostoyevsky tale, White Nights. NOTE: Consider purchasing your tickets in advance. Screenings sometimes sell out.
“This adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s tale about displaced, disconnected people drifting along crossing, doubling paths was shot in moody black-and-white on a soundstage simulacrum of Livorno, Italy. With it Luchino Visconti veered away from verisimilitude and toward an emphatically subjective style—from neorealism to neoromanticism. As a quiet man who accidentally befriends a troubled, lonely young woman (Maria Schell) and finds himself playing understudy for the absent object of her affections (Jean Marais), Marcello Mastroianni mingles subtly passionate yearnings with a characteristic note of annoyance. His character is both distrustful of and seduced by the romantic dreams that preoccupy the woman he loves.”—Pacific Film Archive
Pacific Film Archive Tickets, Information, and Directions: https://bampfa.org/event/white-nights
6:00 Meet at PFA's Box Office (2155 Center Street) to purchase or pick up tickets.
The film starts at 6:30
8:15 After the film we will meet at Elaichi cafe on 2161 Allston Way for conversation.2 attendees
Past events
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