This year’s edition of our annual African Film Festival spans the globe to feature new voices from Africa and the African diaspora, spotlighting pool attendants in Chad, Beethoven lovers in Kinshasa, Tuareg immigrants in Italy, a Spanish filmmaker in Morocco, and even two African American hipsters in San Francisco.

A UC Berkeley course open to the public as space permits, <b>Film 50: History of Cinema</b> takes as its theme this semester films that make prominent use of another art form: theater, literature, painting, dance, music, architecture, or photography. Each screening is presented with a lecture by Marilyn Fabe (Department of Film and Media). Tickets will be available for purchase online on December 22. <a href="/join/benefits">Sponsor-level members</a> and above have a special advance buying window.

“What one loves most about Hawks, finally, is the aliveness of so many of his people” (Robin Wood). Howard Hawks, one of the most-loved directors of classical Hollywood cinema, made films in almost every genre—screwball comedies, dramas, gangster films, action adventures, Westerns, science fiction, musical comedies—and left his distinctive mark on each. Our series, which continues through mid-April, surveys the full range of Hawks’s career, including his rarely screened silents.

This complete retrospective of French director Robert Bresson’s fourteen films—austere and controlled, yet replete with compassion—reveals the beauty and perfectionism of his singular body of work. “Bresson touched something very close to the bone of what French cinema is about; ultimately he defined it” (Olivier Assayas).

Focusing on the past and the present of documentary filmmaking, this series is presented in conjunction with the UC Berkeley course History of Documentary Film. The January/February lineup spotlights PFA’s recent preservation of David Holzman’s legendary cinéma vérité film and an innovative array of recent documentary animations , including a program of shorts, <i>The Green Wave</i><i>,</i> and <i>Kongo</i>. The series continues in March and April with additional programs that explore new directions in documentary film.

Gregory J. Markopoulos, a leading figure of the American avant-garde and the world of art cinema, was a poet filmmaker whose work falls intro three main categories: mythic themes, film portraits, and films of place. Join us for this rare opportunity to view eleven of Markopoulos’s films made between 1940 and 1967.

Copresented by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, this series explores the intersection of silent cinema and aviation. It was film that first allowed moviegoers to vicariously experience flight. The screen was alive with speculations on how life might be lived in a futuristic world of airplanes, spaceships, and dirigibles. Above all, these films savor a new way of seeing: the aerial view. All programs feature live musical accompaniment.<br />