Next Vital Signs screening -- 2pm Sunday, October 4 -- is one of my favorites of the year, and what we mean by vital: Milagros Mumenthaler's THE CURRENTS www.tickettailor.com/events/shape...
Jonathan Kiefer
@kieferama.bsky.social
I wrote the movie Around the Sun and sometimes write about other movies and work for the Roxie Theater and teach at California College of the Arts. East Bay, CA | jonathankiefer.com
Many thanks to Dennis Harvey, whose ever-essential @48hills.bsky.social Screen Grabs column nicely situates our 9/6 Removal of the Eye show among the week's feast of cinematic demonics: 48hills.org/2026/08/scre...
Screen Grabs: The making of a spectacular Hollywood horror disaster - 48 hills
Plus: A feast of cinematic demonics, from 'Creature from the Black Lagoon" (in 3D!) to endlessly crying babies and fuzzy orange unicorns.
48hills.org
I wish I could make it to more of 'Nathaniel Dorsky & Jerome Hiler: Film Offerings' at BAMPFA, but here's a piece on Dorsky's Arboretum Cycle, showing Saturday afternoon. www.screenslate.com/articles/arb...
Arboretum Cycle
In the spring of 2017, after the first wet winter in many dry years, Nathaniel Dorsky walked with his Bolex through Golden Gate Park’s arboretum and noticed the blooming plants. Dorsky’s way of notici...
screenslate.com
Vital Signs Film Series lineup thru Dec! -9/6: Removal of the Eye | Artemis Shaw & Prashanth Kamalakanthan (with them in person) -10/4: The Currents | Milagros Mumenthaler -11/1: The Tree of Knowledge | Eugène Green -12/6: London | Sebastian Brameshuber shapeshifterscinema.com/vital-signs/
A short piece for @screenslatesf.bsky.social about Abbas Kiarostami's And Life Goes On, which screens at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts tomorrow. www.screenslate.com/articles/and...
And Life Goes On
At one unfortunate, or perhaps fortunate, film festival screening of his child-centered drama Where Is the Friend’s House? (1987), Abbas Kiarostami informed the audience that the friend’s house and ma...
screenslate.com
"Run, don’t walk, to see a one-man, three-hour biopic of French poet Arthur Rimbaud, really." --Kenji Fujishima, Book & Film Globe A. RIMBAUD a film by Patrick Wang, starring Blake Draper 2pm Sunday, August 2 Shapeshifters Cinema, Oakland tickets: www.tickettailor.com/events/shape...
Jonathan Kiefer (@kieferama.bsky.social) is programming the monthly Vital Signs Film Series in Oakland ! www.criterion.com/current/post...
"Shot beautifully on 16mm, it serves as the perfect cinematic antidote to technological burnout." --Lucy Peters, Little White Lies magazine MARE'S NEST, a film by Ben Rivers 2pm Sunday, July 5 tickets: bit.ly/MaresNestOakland
You know I love a film series, especially one billed as "slightly strange, noncommercial, very boutique." How Vital Signs Film Series (@kieferama.bsky.social) and Shapeshifters Cinema teamed up to show 'Revelations of Divine Love' this Sunday — with more to come! www.kqed.org/arts/1399079...
Shapeshifters Cinema Hosts a New Film Series for Adventurous Moviegoers
In Oakland, Jonathan Kiefer’s Vital Signs screens ‘new good films to watch with new good friends.’
kqed.org
2pm Sunday May 3: Come appreciate nature by sitting inside appreciating cinema. •WHAT DOES THAT NATURE SAY TO YOU (Hong Sangsoo) •CITY OF NATURE (Kota Ezawa) vitalsignsfilms.substack.com/p/may-3-what...
May 3: What Does That Nature Say to You (Hong Sangsoo) + City of Nature (Kota Ezawa)
Launching Vital Signs at Shapeshifters Cinema with a springtime Sunday matinee
vitalsignsfilms.substack.com
At this free 4/4 screening in SF, I'll be moderating a q&a with Daniel Freeman about his great road movie Teddy, Out of Tune: open.substack.com/pub/vitalsig... @vitalsignsfilms.bsky.social
April 4: Teddy, Out of Tune with live score + Anna Firth Animations
A free screening in San Francisco
open.substack.com
Bay Area food-enjoying friends: Greenhearts Family Farm, which feeds us every week and is consistently excellent, needs some new subscribers. Give them a go! greenheartsfamilyfarm.com
Worthy GoFundMe Alert: Support Shapeshifters Cinema, Brewery & Café www.gofundme.com/f/support-sh...
Donate to Support Shapeshifters Cinema, Brewery & Café, organized by Shapeshifters Cinema, Brewery and Café
All around us we are witnessing the collapse of the San Franc… Shapeshifters Cinema, Brewery and Café needs your support for Support Shapeshifters Cinema, Brewery & Café
gofundme.com
Wrote about San Francisco (the movie) for Screen Slate www.screenslate.com/articles/san...
San Francisco
There is the city, and then there's the movie, and then there's the song. The latter two emerged together in 1936 by way of an MGM Best Picture nominee. It stars Clark Gable as a scoundrel with a code...
screenslate.com
"thin places" are locations where the veil between the physical and spiritual worlds is said to be particularly thin.
Our film’s on Letterboxd, and, if you are too, we'd love for you to log/rate/review/list/love/loathe/destroy/defend it on there. Available as a Vimeo rental, but you can hit us up now through Valentine’s Day for a code to watch for free. letterboxd.com/film/around-...
Well, to take your mind off it, how about an arguably under-appreciated Wenders film playing in SF tonight? I wrote up Notebook on Cities and Clothes for @screenslate.bsky.social: www.screenslate.com/articles/not...
Notebook on Cities and Clothes
Wim Wenders tells us his first Yohji Yamamoto fashion experience was as a consumer, having bought a Yamamoto shirt and jacket that made Wenders feel “more me than before,” partly on account of the gar...
screenslate.com
The majority of organizing happening in Minnesota isn’t just peaceful, it’s INVISIBLE. Moms showing up who won’t be interviewed on TV, people whose ICE patrols don’t turn into viral video. The grocery runs, the donations, the people filming bc they happen to be there. Please remember this.
Thank you, Sarah.
Sarah Hotchkiss@sahotchkiss.bsky.social · 9mo agoWrote this for all my art school friends, teachers and nemeses; for CCA's patient and helpful staff; for my library coworkers; my media services pals; for all the baby artists who won't get to go this art school: www.kqed.org/arts/1398541...
Today's tone-setter for 2026: David Runciman's discussion of Wallace Shawn's play The Designated Mourner www.ppfideas.com/episodes/fil...
Films of Ideas extra: The Designated Mourner
252
ppfideas.com
all these fucks are like bro you don't understand how precise this operation was bro no one's ever done this bro it was epic, expecting us to be like oh well in that case
The bird takes its revenge on the kings in The Thieving Magpie (1964), dir. Emanuele Luzzati and Giulio Gianini Federico Fellini loved this film: "it makes me furious that I don't know how to draw so I could resolve my films in the same way"
Nice to see The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye is free to watch on Le Cinema Club this week. I reviewed it back in the day, and a rewatch seems in order: kieferama.substack.com/p/the-ballad...
The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye
2011
kieferama.substack.com
Hi, I’ll be moderating a couple of Q&As at the Roxie this week. Tomorrow evening: Kathleen Chalfant, who stars, most recently, in FAMILIAR TOUCH Sunday afternoon: Sezin Devi Koehler, discussing her book Much Ado About Keanu: A Critical Reeves Theory, and in particular, SPEED Join us! #movies
Convinced his job is to make Congress even more hesitant to dump Trump.
Radley Balko@radleybalko.bsky.social · last yr.Vance's Easter visit to Rome clogged its streets with a 40-vehicle entourage. He also demanded the Coliseum be closed so he and his family could tour it alone. Tourists who properly booked slots in advance got screwed. He's apparently the first to make that demand. Then he didn't bother to show up.
