Berkeley-Film-Festival

Who will be the next Tarantino, Coppola, Kubrick, Hitchcock, Scorsese or Fincher?

Berkeley has a long-standing relationship with film and the art of film making. In fact, the film culture which is centered on the University of California, Berkeley has made substantial contributions to the industry and has supported the medium as a platform of artistic expression and critical interpretation.

Even the film critic Pauline Kael began her career in the New Yorker while still in Berkeley. Kael was also actively involved in the Berkeley Cinema Guild. Berkeley is also the home of the three top film journals, the Berkeley: Camera Obscura, Women and Film, and Jump Cut. Also, the University of California, Berkeley has been adjudged as one of the best training grounds for future filmmakers.

If you wish to get a glimpse of the future of filmmaking, be sure to watch the documentaries, shorts, features and experimental movies from over 75 independent filmmakers slated to be screened during the 2015 Berkeley Video & Film Festival.

This year’s festival will be held at the East Bay Media Center Performance Space at Addison Street in Berkeley from November 6 until November 14. General admission is priced at $10. Students and elders pay $5. You can also get a festival pass for just $25.

This video and film festival is organized by the East Bay Media Center which has been involved in the independent underground cinema revolution since the Sixties. The festival endeavors to provide a platform for independent film and video makers to showcase their masterpieces. For more than 35 years, EBMC has been serving East Bay and Bay area communities through its media services and training from its award-winning producers.

Among the noteworthy films slated to be screened during the festival are Aurele Ferrier’s “Infrastructures” which has won an award for Best Foreign Experimental; David Finkelstein’s “Suggestive Gestures” which has won a Best Experimental Feature award; K-von’s “NOWRUZ: Lost and Found” which has won a Best Comedy Documentary Award; Jack Anderson’s “Wire Cutters” which has won a Best Animation award from Chapman College; Selkin Fedor’s “Sprints to the Past” which has won the Best Foreign Short award; “PsychoNation 2.0” from Kit Young which has been awarded Best Experimental Art Film; Zachary T. Scott’s “Fight to the Death” which has won the Peckinpah Award, and Darien Stansbury’s “The History of Women,” awarded Best Revisionist Film.

This year’s Berkeley Video & Film Festival will also showcase selections from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts Animation Intro USC Animation and the USC First Look Student Film Festival 2015.  For more information, please visit http://www.berkeleyvideofilmfest.org/

There are lots of interesting attractions around Berkeley.  Be sure to visit our Berkeley Area Attractions page. Book your stay at the DoubleTree by Hilton Berkeley Marina and let the movie fun begin!

*Photo courtesy Berkeley Video & Film Festival