Tuner

Marina Theatre 2149 Chestnut St., San Francisco

Academy Award®–winning director Daniel Roher (Navalny, Festival 2022) makes a striking leap into narrative filmmaking with this stylish, genre-bending thriller. Leo Woodall plays Niki, a meticulous piano tuner whose hypersensitive hearing makes the world painfully loud—but also gives him an uncanny ability to detect the inner workings of locks. His quiet life tuning pianos across […]

Who Moves America

Marina Theatre 2149 Chestnut St., San Francisco

Who Moves America explores the lives of UPS Teamsters facing long hours, unsafe conditions, and relentless physical demands. The film reveals the pressures on delivery drivers and logistics workers who keep cities—and the country—moving, highlighting the stakes behind everyday services often taken for granted. Through intimate portraits and on-the-ground reporting, the documentary showcases the power […]

Salvation

BAMPFA 2155 Center Street, Berkeley

Winner of the Berlinale’s Silver Bear, Emin Alper’s (Frenzy, Festival 2016) electrifying drama of power struggles in a Turkish mountain village exposes the chaos that erupts when territorialism takes root. In the unnamed community, two tribes clash over land and the right to harvest it. Mesut, haunted by troubling dreams he believes are prophetic, stakes […]

How to Clean a House in 10 Easy Steps

Premier Theater at One Letterman 1 Letterman Dr # B, San Francisco

Family separation defined the childhood of filmmaker Carolina Gonzalez Valencia, whose mother Beatriz moved to the US from Colombia to provide for her children by working as a domestic house cleaner. Years later, when Gonzalez Valencia tries to make a film about her parent, she discovers it is easier to resort to playful conversations and […]

Shorts Block 2: Under Pressure

Marina Theatre 2149 Chestnut St., San Francisco

Pressure builds quietly before it breaks. Across cultures, five individuals confront the forces pressing in on their lives, reflecting the fault lines shaping women’s place in the world today. A Portuguese mother struggles beneath the invisible mental load of an uneven household, while a daughter in rural Taiwan navigates tradition during a funeral rite. A […]

Memory of Princess Mumbi

Marina Theatre 2149 Chestnut St., San Francisco

With Memory of Princess Mumbi, Swiss-Kenyan filmmaker Damien Hauser delivers a dazzling film set in the future but pertinent to today. A war fought over addictive technology leads to its outlawing in many parts of the world by 2093. Despite this, AI remains in use to create worlds and alter actors’ facial expressions. Aspiring filmmaker […]

Filipiñana

BAMPFA 2155 Center Street, Berkeley

Isabel is a newly hired ball girl at a pristine golf course on Manila’s outskirts. An Ilokana from rural northern Philippines, she immediately feels out of place among the high-status guests. Motivated by the sweltering heat and her insatiable curiosity, Isabel slips away from her duties on the driving range. Over a languid afternoon, Isabel […]

The Fox King

Marina Theatre 2149 Chestnut St., San Francisco

Amir and Ali are twins reeling from their mother’s death in childbirth. Plus, their deadbeat dad won’t let the boys stay with him, so they work for the owner of a fishing business who gives them rudimentary shelter. Amir speaks rarely, only using the names of animals to communicate, but his passion for reading creates […]

American Doctor

Premier Theater at One Letterman 1 Letterman Dr # B, San Francisco

In American Doctor, filmmaker Poh Si Teng follows three US physicians—Palestinian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian—striving to alleviate suffering in Gaza as the war shatters its medical infrastructure. What begins as an urgent mission of care becomes a searing confrontation with the limits of neutrality. The doctors shoulder impossible choices, witnessing profound suffering while navigating the dangers […]

Hot Water

Marina Theatre 2149 Chestnut St., San Francisco

Ramzi Bashour’s poignant road movie depicts an anxious mother transporting her delinquent son from Indiana to California, highlighting the glories of the American Midwest while unpacking the dynamics of parenting and letting go. Layal (Lubna Azabal, radiant) is a tightly wound Lebanese American who teaches Arabic to hapless students. While listening to a meditation program, […]