SFCinematheque Presents: CROSSROADS @ Gray Area
Founded by filmmaker Bruce Baillie in 1961, San Francisco Cinematheque is the Bay Area’s premier venue for avant-garde/experimental, underground and personally expressive film, video and performance work. In its dedication to exhibiting works of aesthetically radical cinema from all historical eras and geo-political locales, Cinematheque cultivates the international field of artist-made cinema, inspiring aesthetic dialog, and critical discourse and encouraging appreciation across the broader cultural landscape. Inaugurated in 2010, CROSSROADS is San Francisco Cinematheque’s annual film festival, dedicated to the exhibition of contemporary avant-garde film, video and performance work. CROSSROADS is curated annually by Cinematheque’s Artistic Director Steve Polta.
CROSSROADS 2026 is the seventeenth manifestation of Cinematheque’s annual film festival. CROSSROADS 2026 features 49 works of film, video and performance by 52 artists representing 22 countries and territories presented in 8 curated programs. CROSSROADS 2026 features alchemical excursions through everyday hauntings, speculative explorations of the materialities of archives, films hovering at interstices between bodily physicality and luminous ephemerality. CROSSROADS 2026 consists of rituals of remembrance, cryptic missives to future generations and the hauntological frisson of surface noise. Special guest artist JG Thirlwell performs live to legendary beatnik polymath Harry Smith’s obsessively occult classic Heaven and Earth Magic.
Cinematheque is proud to announce that, of these 52 featured artists, 20 are receiving their CROSSROADS debut this year. Full festival details available here.