Shapeshifters Cinema

About Us

SHAPESHIFTERS CINEMA provides a venue and support for contemporary artists working with experimental and artist-made film, video, sound, music and other types of mediated performance. We host screenings and performances by local and visiting artists in our intimate 40-seat theatre and offer workshops on a variety of experimental and DIY moving image and sound production. Our storefront shop specializes in print publications, DVDs, sound recordings and other kinds of media made by artists who have screened or performed in our venue.

SHAPESHIFTERS BREWERY makes a variety of small-batch, seasonal, hand-crafted beers, brewed on-site in a space right behind the cinema. These are served (to 21+) at all our events as well as some off-site events. Find out more at shapeshiftersbrewery.com

SHAPESHIFTERS CAFÉ, is right next door to our cinema! We offer freshly-made salads, sandwiches, coffee, tea, pastries and more. Open Monday-Friday 6am-2pm and every Saturday 10am-2pm. Find out more at shapeshifterscafe.com

Staff

Gilbert Guerrero - Operations Director & A/V Tech
Kathleen Quillian - Programming Director
Ellie Vanderlip - Education & Outreach Director

The Shapeshifters Membership program provides crucial, sustaining support for our small, DIY, volunteer-run organization. By joining the membership program, you become part of an engaged, diverse, creative community working in and around experimental moving image, sound and time-based art. Each level offers a range of access to members-only resources and events, discounts, comps and more. Find out more and join now!

Cinema

Gravitational Lensing: Feminist Film Dialogues is a series curated by Amy Reid and Kathleen Quillian that is dedicated to exploring the visions, voices, concerns and lineage of women, non-binary, genderqueer and trans filmmakers through public film screenings, workshops, conversations and presentations. New programs are presented monthly at Shapeshifters. Find out more.

Upcoming Programs & Events

Gravitational Lensing: Feminist Film Dialogues
Program 10 - Craft, Tradition & Ritual
Presented in association with San Francisco Cinematheque and Third World Newsreel
Friday, August 22, 2025
7pm
Admission: $15 (discount for members)

Films that honor personal and familial legacies by focusing on activities traditionally passed down through matrilineal lines including sewing, crafting, foraging, weaving and decorating.

Screening: On the Inside We Are Color (16mm film shown on DV) by Elena Pardo, Water Ritual #1 (1979, 16mm film shown on DV) by Barbara McCullough, Primitiva (2023, 16mm film shown on DV) by Azucena Losana, Thread (2022, 35mm film shown on DV) by Abigail Smith, Nana (2021, DV) by Kani Kamil, Le Tarantole Dormono Sotto Le Pietre (2023, 16mm film shown on DV) by Giada Cicchetti and Seeing Her (2020, 16mm film shown on DV) by Lindsay McIntyre.

Promotional Image from Primitiva by Azucena Losana

Find out more about the Gravitational Lensing: Feminist Film Dialogues series.

CROSSROADS 2025 - Program 8: the mountain replied with an echo
Sunday, August 31, 2025
8pm
Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, 2665 Mission St. San Francisco
More information + tickets

Shapeshifters is excited to be the community partner for Program 8 of SF Cinematheque's annual CROSSROADS film festival.

Program 8: the mountain replies with an echo includes five films exploring earth, sky and subterranean spaces, indigeneity, interspecies entwinement and relationships to the ungrievable land. Luminously material films embodying geologic memories, reconstructed histories and incantations of transformation. Speculations on potential futures: how it was and how it could be. Have we met somewhere before?

SCREENING: Tuktuit : Caribou (2025) by Lindsay McIntyre (Inuit/Canada); digital video, color, sound, 15 minutes. The Early Sun, Red as a Hunter's Moon (2025) by Adam Piron (Kiowa/Mohawk); digital video, color, sound, 13 minutes. I Carry the Universe with Me 我將宇宙隨身攜帶 (2024) by Cherlyn Hsing-Hsin Liu (US/Taiwan); digital video, color, sound, 21 minutes. Black Glass (2024) by Adam Piron (Kiowa/Mohawk); digital video, color, sound, 9 minutes. Mines to Caves (2023) by Cauleen Smith (US); digital video, color, sound, 10 minutes. TRT: 68 minutes

Promotional Image from I Carry the Universe with Me 我將宇宙隨身攜帶 (2024) by Cherlyn Hsing-Hsin Liu

Find out more about CROSSROADS 2025

Do-Over Music Series - Staiano / Levis / Mor / Zhang / Wilson
Thursday, September 4, 2025
7pm
Admission: $10 (discount for members)

The Do-Over Music Series at Shapeshifters Cinema, organized by Lisa Mezzacappa and Jordan Glenn, is a monthly series of sound performances presented by a rotating cast of local luminaries and special guests. The first set features performances of creative - improvised - composed - electronic - acoustic - music. The second set opens up to a live improvised collaboration of sound and visuals made using images culled from the Shapeshifters 16mm film collection.

Set 1 (7pm): Moe Staiano + Jason Levis DRUMSET DUO!

Set 2 (8pm): expanded cinema + improvised music with:

Edan Mor - saxophone
Jasmine Zhang - voice/objects/electronics
Adam Wilson - synthesizers/bass
Films, film loops and other visual interventions by the Shapeshifters Performance Group (Ellie, Kathleen & Gilbert)

Animation Brüt: Pegbar Curious
Friday, September 5, 2025
7pm
Admission: $14 (discount for members)

Animation Brüt is a rejection of conventional storytelling and image making. It embraces the gestural, the fervent, and the fevered dreamers of sequential imagery. Animation has limits, Animation Brüt embraces them and licks the wrapping for more flavor. Featuring CGI lacerations, hammered steel stop motion, and queer yearnings fuzzed out on magnetic tape. Curated by Sam Gurry, Animation Brüt is a night of experimental animation, presenting films by artists working inside and out of the traditional animation paradigm but all seeking to break down its boundaries.

Drawing from a legacy of queer underground film and DIY animation, this program showcases artists who've always worked outside the lines, getting wild, wet, or, honestly, a little weird with it. Films about coming out, coming of age, and coming a lot (hell yeah brother). From cardboard puppets to rotoscoped runways to libidinal scribbles barely holding it together, Pegbar Curious is a celebration of movement as confession, feelings in excess, and that good, good weird, weird animation.

Featuring work by Zhong Xian, Miz Reyes, Gaby Escovar, Kohana Wilson, David Delafuente, Mallbat, Laura Collins, and more.

Rotating Signals: The Contemporary Korean Avant-Garde
Friday, September 12, 2025
7pm
Admission: $14 (discount for members)

A program of 10 short films, curated and organized by Joshua Kim, highlighting the current landscape of experimental film in Korea, as well as from those in the Korean diaspora around the world.

SCREENING: A Dark Room (2025, b/w, silent, 10 mins) by Heehyun Choi, Spoken Word (2023, b/w, silent, 4 mins) by Hyoin Kwak, Rotating Signals (2025, color, sound, 10 mins) by Chae Yu, Shadow-Forest (2025, color, sound, 28 mins) by Go-Eun Im, Long Sand and Water (2023, color, silent, 5 mins) by Hyeisoo Kim & Luuk Schröder, Bye, Snark, Boo-Jum! (2024, b/w, silent, 8 mins) by Jiyong In, Geomeunyeo (2025, b/w, sound, 3 mins) by Kyujae Park, Pyohaerok (2025, color, silent, 14 mins) by Il-hwan, Buseok (2024, b/w + color, silent, 18 mins) by Kyujae Park, Lord (2024, color, silent, 14 mins) by Chul-woong Jang

Promotional image from Long Sand and Water by Hyeisoo Kim & Luuk Schröder

STUDIO 8 Film Festival – Opening Night Shorts Program
Organized by the SF Artists Alumni
Friday, September 19, 2025
7pm
Admission: $10-50, sliding scale

The second edition of the STUDIO 8 Film Festival celebrates experimental film and animation by alumni of the San Francisco Art Institute. Kicking off the festival weekend is a dynamic program of nonfiction and experimental works, curated by SFAI alumni artists April September and Rye Purvis, exploring themes of performance, queer identity, and artistic legacy. The selected films illustrate how experimental filmmaking continues to serve as an essential tool for engaging with personal, cultural and societal issues by challenging dominant narratives, setting the stage for a weekend rooted in risk-taking and radical imagination.

SCREENING: The World is Not Our Home by Juan Luis Matos, estos paisajes nos están encendiendo by Daniel Melo Morales, Fogline by Julie McNiel, Shi Arl by Arlene Bowman, Set You Free by Nykelle Devivo, Sasquatch, so confusing by Rye Purvis, La Nueva Ola de Añil by Karla Claudio, TABLEAU by Nao Bustamante.

For more information about the festival, visit: www.sfartistsalumni.org

Donald Beaman, Sean Forth, Hollyfrancis
Saturday, September 20, 2025
7pm
Admission: $10 (discount for members)

"Donald Beaman...conjures up a twilit landscape with shimmering guitars, clever-but-not-fussy arrangements and vocals that recall the enigmatic lilts of Cass McCombs and Will Oldham…in the classic folk/rock/country vein, while still feeling absolutely fresh...quietly gorgeous…filled with empathy and warmth. — Aquarium Drunkard

"Hollyfrancis is performing as a 2 piece, featuring pedal steel and harmonica. Based out of Oakland, CA, their sound draws from their Appalachian roots, country twang, and rock n roll. Somewhere in the mix of Neil Young, Pavement, and Wilco, they focus on combining melody and softness with grit and cathartic release." — some guy

"Sean Forth is a singer songwriter currently living in the santa cruz mountains. Sean brings a catalog of songs based off his own experiences which he blankets on top of his freak folk country blues style guitar picking" — not Sean

Uncanny Cabaret II - Variety Show & Fundraiser
Saturday, September 27, 2025
5-7pm
Admission: $25-50, sliding scale (All proceeds go to benefit Driveway Follies)

As summer turns to fall and the days grow shorter, we can only think of one thing - Halloween! Join us to kick off the season with Uncanny Cabaret II — a special multi-media variety show and fundraiser for our friends at Driveway Follies, the long-running and beloved Oakland Halloween puppet show tradition.

This family-friendly event will include live puppet performances by Driveway Follies and Risa Lenore (of Possibly Puppets), along with expanded film performances by Lydia Greer and Kathleen Quillian + Halloween-adjacent films from the trick film canon and more!