In the Dirt

Oct 21, 2013 — As a film star, John Cassavetes embodied the kinetic, wild-eyed, insanely grinning villain. He seemed born to the role, with his volatile energy and dynamic outbursts, luminous yet curiously deadened eyes, wide-gaping mouth (David Thomson has likened it to a...

Oct 2, 2025 — The festival presents new films from Gianfranco Rosi, Kahlil Joseph, Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus, and Lucrecia Martel.

Apr 22, 2025 — The majestic landscape of Provence takes center stage in Claude Berri’s two-film adaptation of an epic tale by Marcel Pagnol, a cinematic treasure that remains an abiding source of comfort for French viewers.

Sep 25, 2024 — A dozen newly restored films from the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s will screen in this year’s program.

Jul 20, 2022 — A brutal critique of the American dream, Carl Franklin’s 1995 thriller explicitly confronts the racialized implications of classic film noir.

Feb 11, 2017 — Ermanno Olmi captures the dignity of work in this painterly vision of late nineteenth-century rural Italy.

Jul 5, 2016 — Arthur Hiller’s 1979 comedy pairs Alan Arkin and Peter Falk as unlikely comrades in a madcap farce that lands every laugh.

Jun 22, 2015 — Terry Gilliam touches down in the real world for the first time with this fanciful tale of blurred class boundaries in New York City.

May 5, 2026 — The nation’s largest silent film festival returns to the newly renovated Castro Theatre.

Apr 1, 2026 — BAMPFA presents a retrospective in conjunction with the filmmaker’s residency at UC Berkeley.