PART ONE

The San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) Film Department was founded in the late 1960s by Robert Nelson and Lawrence Jordan and for over 50 years attracted young artists who were excited by film as a form of poetic expression. The exceptional faculty — George Kuchar, James Broughton, Gunvor Nelson, Ernie Gehr, Al Wong, Janis Crystal Lipzin, Steve Anker, and the department’s founders — encouraged students to find their voices and stretch artistic boundaries in ways that reflected San Francisco’s freedom of lifestyle and radical experimentation. This first of two programs, curated by Steve Anker and Mark Wilson, includes films that were made by alumni and others at SFAI while they were at the institute or in their later lives. Today’s selection can only begin to suggest the range and richness of the work made during the department’s existence.

Films

Luminae (Dominic Angerame, 2023, 4 min., digital)
Confessions (Curt McDowell, 1971, 11 min., 16mm)
Florence (Peter Hutton, 1975, 7 min., 16mm)
Catch (Vincent Grenier, 1975, 4 min., 16mm)
If X, Then Y (Jacalyn White, 1986, 8 min., Super-8mm)
Visible Inventory Nine: Pattern of Events (Janis Crystal Lipzin, 1981, 12 min., 16mm)
Noema (Scott Stark, 1998, 11 min., 16mm)
More Intimacy (Tony Wu, 1999, 5 min., Super-8mm)
The Penfield Road (Diane Kitchen, 1998, 5.5 min., 16mm)
Ephemerality (Marian Wallace, 1979, 3 min., 16mm)
Alas, Departing (Dicky Bahto, 2022, 7.5 min., digital)

Running time: 79 minutes

PART TWO

Orbiting Bodies examines affinities shared in the work of SFAI alumni artists spanning the decades. Bodies in orbit can be those of the SFAI community flowing together, the stationary orbit of one’s partner in front of the camera, or a child’s repetitive revolutions around a parent as they both age. Other times these bodies are planetary, keeping ancient celestial time. Threaded through the projector in inventive ways, film can even diverge from its usual path and orbit itself. The work and community of SFAI artists orbit one another across the years. These films investigate our perception of time, sometimes in collaboration with composers of music, another time-based medium. This program, the second screening in a two-part series curated by Steve Anker and Mark Wilson, includes films made between the 1970s and 2000s by alumni and allied institute figures at SFAI or later in their careers.

Films

Retrospectroscope (Kerry Laitala, 1997, 5 min., 16mm)
Redshift (Emily Richardson, 2001, 4 min., 16mm)

The Shadow Line (Toney W. Merritt, 1985, 13.5 min., 16mm on digital video)
The Dark Room (Minyong Jang, 2007, 4 min., 16mm)
Moebius Strip (Luis Recoder, 1997, 13 min., 16mm)

Shape Shift (Scott Stark, 2004, 3 min., digital)

Poet in Orbit (Joel Singer, 1980, 2 min., 16mm on digital video)
Same Stream Twice (Lynne Sachs, 2012, 4 min., 16mm on digital video)

Riverbody (Alice Anne Parker, 1970, 7 min., 16mm)
George (Henry Hills, 1976, 2 min., 16mm)

Celestial (Gregg Biermann, 2018, 9 min., digital, live score by John Davis)

Running time: 66 minutes