Documentary Voices
February 5–April 30, 2025
BAMPFA’s annual selection of compelling nonfiction films begins with a visit by Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa, who will discuss his approaches to nonfiction filmmaking.
The series continues with the award-winning documentary No Other Land. Made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective, it chronicles the ongoing struggle of Palestinian villagers to resist the destruction of their homes by the Israeli military. Dana Claxton and the Ishi Collective draw on the late James Luna’s ISHI: The Archive Performance to reflect on the legacy of dehumanizing anthropological practices that rendered Indigenous people scientific specimens. Combining performance, documentary, and video techniques, they tell the story of Ishi, the last known member of the Yahi people, who lived out the last…
Documentary Voices
February 5–April 30, 2025
BAMPFA’s annual selection of compelling nonfiction films begins with a visit by Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa, who will discuss his approaches to nonfiction filmmaking.
The series continues with the award-winning documentary No Other Land. Made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective, it chronicles the ongoing struggle of Palestinian villagers to resist the destruction of their homes by the Israeli military. Dana Claxton and the Ishi Collective draw on the late James Luna’s ISHI: The Archive Performance to reflect on the legacy of dehumanizing anthropological practices that rendered Indigenous people scientific specimens. Combining performance, documentary, and video techniques, they tell the story of Ishi, the last known member of the Yahi people, who lived out the last years of his life at the University of California Museum of Anthropology, now the Hearst Museum. Presented in conjunction with Landscape of Myth: Westerns After “The Searchers” are two films documenting the work of contemporary cowboys and cowgirls: Kevin Jerome Everson records the preparations for a Black rodeo in Ten Five in the Grass, while Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw’s carefully composed frames capture the daily life and traditions of Argentine horsemen and one aspiring horsewoman.
Established to honor the memory of the great Berkeley-based documentarian, the 2025 Les Blank Lecture is presented by Bay Area archivist, filmmaker, educator, and curator Rick Prelinger. Prelinger will discuss his work archiving and exhibiting home movies and other ephemeral films. Another local treasure, and curator of BAMPFA’s recent Masc series, Jenni Olson will be here in person to present her essay film The Royal Road, which intertwines romantic longing with California history and landscapes. Asmae El Moudir investigates family secrets as she builds with her father and films a model of the Casablanca neighborhood of her childhood in The Mother of All Lies. Named after an abandoned US military base in Afghanistan, Hollywoodgate is a chilling chronicle of the establishment of Taliban rule in the aftermath of war. The fallout from another intractable conflict, the war in Vietnam, which ended fifty years ago this spring, resonates through Elizabeth Ai’s New Wave, which explores the liberating effects of electronic music for Vietnamese American teens in California. Borders and migration are central to the work of Kurdish artist Pinar Öğrenci and French documentary filmmaker Sylvain George, who will present recent works in person in April.
—Kate MacKay, Associate Film Curator
