Scorsese and Godard are Both Getting Retrospectives in Berkeley This Fall

“Nicely balanced” might be the best way to describe the Fall 2026 Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive (hereafter “BAMPFA”) film program.  There are crowd-pleasing film series in the form of the Godard and Scorsese events.  But also here this quarter are experiments in expanding the cinematic medium (Alternative Visions), earlier films by an acclaimed new director (Alice Diop), and even a spotlight on an exciting regional cinema (Georgian Cinema).  

BAMPFA’s programming shows once again why the art of cinema benefits when its practitioners aspire to much more than generating money.

 “Jean-Luc Godard’s Early Films (September 5 - November 19, 2026)” is the best type of film series for creating new cinephiles.  Not only does it kick off with the director’s unforgettable feature debut “Breathless” in a 4K restoration, but it also introduces newbies to some other Godard films that have become cinema classics in their own rights. 

For example, “Contempt (4:30 PM on September 19, 2026 and 6:30 PM on November 8, 2026)” takes as its starting point an adaptation of “The Odyssey” by a famed director (Fritz Lang playing himself) for vulgar American producer Jerry Prokosch (Jack Palance).  But the real drama involves Paul Javal (Michel Piccoli), the writer brought in to doctor Lang’s script, and his collapsing marriage to his gorgeous wife Camille (Brigette Bardot).

Sorry S.F. resident Jimmy Johnson, but the Louvre run sequence in “Band Of Outsiders (1:00 PM on October 4, 2026 and 7:00 PM on November 12, 2026)” is just one of the wonderfully off-kilter moments that make Godard’s film much more than its “two wanna-be tough guys and a girlfriend plan a robbery” story setup.  Remember critic Jonathan Rosenbaum’s advice to not overlook the film’s darker undercurrents.

Godard takes the proverbial p**s out of leftist self-seriousness with “La Chinoise (7:00 PM on November 19, 2026).”  The members of the Aden Arabie cell, a wannabe radical Maoist group, may intently study Marxist texts and discuss how to apply Maoism to their revolutionary practice.  However, the Aden Arabie group’s version of leftist politics doesn’t preclude maintaining everyday class differences.

A different type of French blindness, this time to the racial inequities that suffuse this society, happens to be the target of Alice Diop’s camera.  Her chronicles of lives in the minority-heavy Parisian suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis brings to the screen images of Black lives previously left invisible by French cinema.  The “Alice Diop In Person (September 3-18, 2026)” series gives viewers a chance to get a fuller picture of the director’s work to date.  Viewers who have already seen series opener (and Diop’s narrative feature film debut)  “Saint Omer” can look forward to checking out Diop’s prior documentaries as well as her most recent short film. 

A trip on Paris’ RER B train line provides the framework for Diop’s documentary “We (7:00 PM on September 4, 2026).”  The train’s north to south route brings on board writers, cleaning ladies, garage mechanics, and more into the same space.  Similarities between the RER B line and San Francisco’s 22 Fillmore Muni line may be way closer than the reader thinks.

“Danton’s Death (3:30 PM on September 13, 2026)” follows the professional struggles of Black actor Steve Tientcheu.  He may have studied at the prestigious Cours Simon drama school and had been classically trained.  But because the film’s subject hails from the disadvantaged Aulnay-sous-Bois suburb, way too many of the roles he gets offered are typecast “street” roles.

“Fragments For Venus (7:00 PM on September 18, 2026)” is Diop’s most recent short film.  It’s inspired by the Robin Coste Lewis poem “Voyage Of The Sable Venus.”  The film follows two different women looking at depictions of Black life.  One examines the Louvre’s collection of Western paintings on this subject.  The other sees the beauty of Black street life in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn.  (Note for Broke-Ass viewers: the screening that this short is part of is Free.)

Another contemporary female director getting her due this quarter hails from South Korea.  “Yim Soon-Rye In Person (November 13-14, 2026)” presents that country’s most prolific female auteur with two of her most popular films.  “Waikiki Brothers (4:00 PM on November 13, 2026)” follows the assorted misfortunes of the titular mediocre nightclub cover band.  The gigs the band does at off-season hotels in the hinterlands doubles as a metaphorical history of South Korea in the 1980s.  Food lovers will want to check out “Little Forest (6:30 PM on November 14, 2026).”  This live-action manga adaptation follows a young professional woman who leaves Seoul’s high-speed life behind for a rural village where she can “make her own time” farming and cooking.

The final short film series this quarter is the “Stefanie Schulte Strathaus: Modes Of Archivism (October 14-18, 2026)” series.  Strathaus, the famed Arsenal Filminstitut film curator, talks in person about her curatorial work as well as her involvement in restoring films from such countries as Egypt and Nigeria.  Aside from her lecture on her international collaborations including partnerships with film communities in Africa and the Middle East, there will also be film programs highlighting some of Arsenal Filminstitut’s restoration work.  

The “Collaborations With Cairo’s Cinematheque (7:00 PM on October 15, 2026)” program features restorations from the Egyptian Cinematheque - Alternative Film Centre including the dreamlike short portrait of Cairo street performers “Sad Song Of Touha.”  The previously lost “Shaihu Umar (3:00 PM on October 18, 2026)”  is the fictional biography of the titular Islamic teacher.  It’s a life marked by a parental death, slavery, and the long road to becoming an Imam.  Finally, “Remembering Harun Farocki (7:00 PM on October 14, 2026)” looks at the late German filmmaker and political activist.  Included in this program are “Exprmntl 4 Knokke,” a documentary about the 4th International Experimental Film Festival which Farocki attended, and a trio of short Farocki films including “The Words Of The Chairman.”  

The Harun Farocki program also happens to be one of the offerings at this year’s “Alternative Visions (September 9 - November 18, 2026)” film series.  Another selection, the Teddy Award-winning documentary “Barbara Forever,” recently played Frameline 50.  Fortunately, there are other timely delights to be found in this year’s series of experimental films.

The shorts program “Push Buttons And AI (7:00 PM on September 9, 2026)” looks at the social implications of AI with both critical and humorous eyes.  Among the shorts are Nicolas Gourault’s “Their Eyes” (a portrait of the mind-numbing human labor needed to feed AI) and Gibbs Chapman’s “Push Button” (a dryly funny look at the effects of automation on 21st century humans).

Another shorts program, “Films By The COUSIN Collective And Christophe Katrib (7:00 PM on October 7, 2026),” presents samples of cinematic work by this contemporary indigenous artist film collective.  They include Sky Hopinka’s “Dislocation Blues,” a consideration of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, and Lindsay McIntyre’s “Tuktuit,” which presents caribou and lichen in a non-standard manner.  Lebanese artist Katrib’ may not be an indigenous artist.  Yet as Katrib’s short “This Dissonance” recognizes, the United States’ existence depended on land theft and U.S.-backed ally Israel is conducting ethnic cleansing and genocide on both Palestine and Lebanon.

The “Celluloid Frontiers: A Missing Can Of Film And Stop Genocide (7:00 PM on October 29, 2026)” program presents two short films linked in a film/answer film relationship.  Zahir Raihan’s “Stop Genocide” depicts the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War through the lenses of Soviet Realism and Third Cinema.  Naeem Mohaiemen’s “A Missing Can Of Film” excavates the leftist politics buried in “Stop Genocide” and mixes in footage related to the July 2024 Student “Monsoon” Uprising.

On the other hand, the politics of resistance are definitely not buried in the series “The Cinema Of Masashi Kobayashi: Midcareer Masterworks (October 31 - November 21, 2026).”  Many of the films here support resistance to authority…even when the entrenched power remains undefeated.

In “Samurai Rebellion (7:00 PM on November 11, 2026 and 3:30 PM on November 21, 2026),” Japanese acting legend Toshiro Mifune plays legendary but aging swordsman Isaburo Sasahara, a vassal who wants to be a good servant to Aizu clan daimyo Masakata Matsudaira.  But when the daimyo’s advisers order Sasahara’s elder son to marry the daimyo’s ex-concubine Ichi, a series of events will result in the old swordsman discovering his limits of obedience to his daimyo.   

The Edo period samurai drama “Harakiri (7:00 PM on November 6, 2026 and 4:00 PM on November 20, 2026)” concerns a ronin named Tsugumo Hanshiro (Tatsuya Nakadai), who wishes to commit seppuku in the courtyard of the Iyi clan palace.  However, is his request actually a suicide bluff being done to scam money?  What connection exists between Hanshiro and ronin Chijiiwa Motome, who also made a seppuku request?

The film trilogy that put Kobayashi on the international cinema map is “The Human Condition (Part One at 1:30 PM on November 8, 2026, Part Two at 1:30 PM on November 15, 2026, and Part Three at 1:30 PM on November 22, 2026),” an epic 9 ½-hour tale about the Japanese occupation of China during World War II.  Protagonist Kaji (Nakadai) is a would-be socialist whose humanitarian nature clashes with the brutalities of war embodied by both the Japanese and Russian armies.

For examples of cinema that flourishes even in the midst of domestic political repression, a viewer must turn to “Georgian Cinema Now: Part 1 (September 23 - October 2, 2026).” Georgian films touring the festival circuit in recent years, such as Salome Jashi’s stunning documentary “Taming The Garden” and Levan Akin’s LGBTQ+-themed drama “Crossing,” have already wowed audiences and critics.  Here are some other films to check out in the first part of what’s intended to be BAMPFA’s year-long contemporary Georgian cinema series.

An earlier Jashi documentary is her “An Incomplete Day In The History Of Georgia 10.06.93. (4:30 PM on September 27, 2026).”   The film consists solely of video recordings of  Georgia’s newly independent Parliament debating over changing from the Russian ruble to a national currency coupon.  It may sound like a non-political junkie’s ideal of tedium.  Yet the result of this debate would determine whether this fledgling free government would have the economic tools it needed to fight fuel shortages, budget shortfalls, and quick inflation.

In Elene Naveriani’s drama “Wet Sand (7:00 PM on October 2, 2026),” Tbilisi-based Moe returns to an insular village on the Georgian Black Sea to organize her grandfather Eliko’s funeral and take care of his affairs in the wake of his suicide.  But she soon finds herself fighting  villagers determined to protect their bigoted moral and religious codes.  Moe’s few allies include dapper cafe owner Amnon and his alluring server Fleshka.

Nino Orjonikidze and Vano Arsenishvili’s documentary “A Tunnel (3:00 PM on September 25, 2026)” may possess an innocuous title.  But making the titular tunnel for the high-speed trains of China’s New Silk Road construction project will involve such things as blasting holes in mountains.  The local residents of Zvare and other area villages aren’t keen on having their local landscape spoiled.  Yet their displeasure is likely to get trampled by the millions of yuan poured into completing the Chinese project.

The “Hong Kong Cinema: Rarities And Restorations (October 23 - November 28, 2026)” film series brings together important films from the Hong Kong cinema canon as well as some unexpected rarities.  Viewers who missed the seminal “The Arch” at an earlier BAMPFA screening will have a second chance to view this significant film.  But there are others making their debut in this series:

Allen Fong’s “Just Like Weather (6:00 PM on November 15, 2026)” mix of documentary, re-enactment, and fiction follows a real-life young couple dealing with both the challenges of married life and unfortunately understandable anxiety regarding the 1997 handover of Hong Kong.  Will a trip to America help them deal with their indecision?

King Hu’s wuxia actioner “The Valiant Ones (4:00 PM on November 1, 2026)” would be the acclaimed director’s sendoff to the genre.  In 16th century Ming Dynasty China, wukou (Japanese pirates) harassed China’s coastline unimpeded thanks to a combination of fighting skill and the collusion of corrupt officials reaching all the way up to the Emperor.  General Zhou assembles a small group of warriors under the command of captain Yu Da-you to take down the wukou and their enablers.  But can Yu’s group win despite being badly outnumbered?

Acclaimed Hong Kong New Wave director Ann Hui made her theatrical feature debut with “The Secret (7:00 PM on November 5, 2026).”  The real-life “Double Corpse Murder Case” provided the inspiration for this story.  Nurse Lin Jeng-ming is not convinced a mentally unstable man was responsible for the double murders of her neighbor and a doctor who worked at Lin’s hospital.  With the help of the murdered neighbor’s blind grandmother, the nurse’s investigation will eventually take her to Macau.  But who’s the mysterious woman dressed in red?

Chan Wan’s “Colorful Youth (4:00 PM on October 25, 2026)” pairs popular Cantonese teen idols Connie Chan Po-chu and Josephine Siao Fong-fong in a contemporary tale of trendy fashions, song-and-dance numbers, and eye-catching scooters.  Chan plays the hard-working Nancy while Siao’s Helen indulges in bad behavior (probably not pot smoking, sorry).  Then again, other characters have bad encounters with unsavory people, and one character even dies (a necessity for the film’s Moral Lesson).

But the series’ don’t miss film would have to be Stanley Kwan’s “Center Stage (3:00 PM on November 28, 2026).”  The legendary Maggie Cheung stars in this modernist biopic of famed Chinese silent film actress Ruan Lingyu, whose career of playing strong-willed virtuous women was cut short by her suicide at age 24.  Kwan’s genius comes from the way Ruan’s story is told.  Not only is there footage from some of Ruan’s films, but there are dramatizations of key moments in the actress’ life as well as interviews with veteran filmmakers of the 1930s…and the actors playing these real-life characters.

One of this quarter’s “Special Screenings (Ongoing)” brings back after a long absence a well-regarded Asian film in a newly struck 35 mm print.  In Tsai Ming-liang’s pre-apocalyptic musical drama “The Hole (7:00 PM on September 19, 2026),” near-turn-of-the-millennium Taiwan gets socked by both constant rain and a weird disease which causes its victims to seek out dark places.  In a run-down apartment building, Hsiao Kang (Tsai regular Lee Kang-sheng) has a testy relationship with the woman who lives downstairs.  Yet the two wind up forming an emotional connection through the hole between their apartments.  Having fanciful musical numbers inspired by singer Grace Chang helps a lot.

Charlie Chaplin’s comic classic “Modern Times (4:00 PM on September 12, 2026 and 3:30 PM on November 27, 2026)” follows Chaplin’s Little Tramp on his misadventures in trying to survive in a world of assembly line labor and hard economic times.  Don’t immediately assume this comedy from the days of analog labor has nothing to say to our digital era.

The must-see among this quarter’s Special Screenings is the 4K restoration of Maurice Pialat’s TV mini-series “La maison des bois (The House In The Woods),” which screens in 2 parts on October 17 and 23, 2026 with an encore on October 24 and 30, 2026.  The mini-series is set in the French country town of Oise during the First World War.  It follows a trio of boys sent from Paris to live with the Picard family to keep them safe.  But even in this country town, the Great War leaves marks on all who reside there. 

Finally, the quarter sees the start of the “Martin Scorsese Pictures” series, which runs from September 5, 2026 to June 2027.  The first chunk of this retrospective mixes together some of the feature films that made Scorsese’s reputation (some in 4K restorations such as “Mean Streets”) with some lesser known titles (e.g. “Italianamerican And American Boy: A Profile Of Stephen Prince”).  Some suggestions:

Do Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism and the night-time streets of 1970s New York City really go together like a marriage made in Hell?  In “Taxi Driver (7:00 PM on September 12, 2026 and 3:30 PM on November 14, 2026),” which adapts Sartre’s Nausea,  Scorsese shows why the answer is a firm “yes.”  Add in Bernard Herrmann’s spectacularly brooding score and Robert De Niro’s chillingly unforgettable cab driver Travis Bickle, and you have unquestionably one of the greatest films ever made.

The documentary “The Last Waltz (7:00 PM on September 20, 2026 and 5:30 PM on November 27, 2026)” has justifiably been called one of the greatest concert films ever made.  It’s partly a chronicle of The Band’s 1976 farewell concert at Bill Graham’s Winterland Ballroom.  But that farewell gets supplemented by performances from such guests as Muddy Waters, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, and Eric Clapton.  (Note: The Band hit “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” is a hell of an earworm if you ignore its politics.)

“Raging Bull (7:00 PM on October 16, 2026 and 6:30 PM on November 21, 2026)” sees star De Niro play real-life boxer Jake LaMotta.  However, this biopic of the ambitious middleweight pugilist who wanted to succeed on his own terms doesn’t just celebrate his triumphs in the ring.  The film also delivers a stark portrait of the emotional toll that LaMotta’s drive towards the championship takes on him and those around him.  

Did Scorsese foresee the rise of parasocial relationships in his satirical 1982 tale “The King Of Comedy (7:00 PM on October 18, 2026)?”  Wannabe comedian Rupert Pupkin (De Niro) believes his “relationship” with talk-show host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis) is the big break he needs to launch his stand-up career.  When reality threatens to scuttle Pupkin’s delusion, he resorts to desperate means to get what he wants from Langford.