Sex Pistols, Schwarzenegger, and More At 3rd Studio 8 Film Festival

Q: What do you call an avant-garde cineaste class reunion that’s open to the public?  

A: The third edition of the Studio 8 Film Festival, which runs from November 6-8, 2026 at the 4-Star Theater and the Roxie Theater.

The festival’s name refers to the Chestnut Street classroom of the late, lamented San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI).  Here, students honed their artistic vision in what eventually became a film production studio for such underground cultural luminaries as George Kuchar.

The nonprofit organization San Francisco Artists Alumni can take credit for creating this annual festival.  These SFAI graduates have a mission of creating exhibitions and showcasing opportunities for the works of former SFAI staff, students, and faculty.  For example, the monthly SFAA Spotlight Talk Series features such conversations as Mai Ryuno helming a live participatory experience which uses pieces of artwork as launching pads for shared attention and communal reflection, and former SFAI Printmaking Department chair Timothy Berry and political printmaker/video artist Irene Carvajal talking about printmaking and decades of artistic experience.  

The first edition of the Studio 8 Film Festival in 2024 smushed together all its sections into a one-day event.  This year’s festival both spread the festival’s sections out over three days and kept everything in San Francisco instead of crossing the bay to Oakland’s Thrillpeddlers for one segment.   

Kicking the 2026 festival off is “Where To?” aka Jurors’ Night (7:30 PM on November 6, 2026 at the 4-Star Theater).  The program allows each of this year’s Open Call jurors to show one of their short films.

Ed Jones’ “Nine Years Behind The Wheel” shows 1980s San Francisco from the perspective of a night shift cab driver who’s also an artist.  The cab-shot footage includes various passengers, S.F. Art Institute openings, and even the old No Nothing Cinema on Berry Street. 

“Lullaby To My Father” and “Lullaby To My Father Redux” from director Michael LaRocco is a tale of family and absence.  In this case, it’s a father who turned out to have a second family in Vietnam during that war.

Finally, there’s Jacalyn White & Joell Hallowell’s “Lost Or Found.”  It repurposes family and friends’ cell phone footage of 21st century American life in juxtapositions that will surprise you.  And yes, this includes 2020’s shelter-in-place existence.

After the screening, local institution V. Vale of RE/SEARCH will talk with the filmmakers. 

The second night event, “Personal Visions (2:00 PM on November 7, 2026 at the 4-Star Theater),” presents the experimental film and documentary shorts selected by this year’s Open Call jurors.  Here, one can see such films as Colette Standish’s “Chasing The Light: Dreamscape of the Erotized Body (Director’s Cut),” Lanford Weingrod’s “Parallel Owls,” Rock Ross’ “Babuba,” Kavena Hambira’s “Mounds Along The Waves,” and “American Language” from WE DA PEPO (Irene Carvajal, Justin Seo, Zhang Mengjiao, Michael Martinez, Nivedita Madigubba, Oscar Lopez, and Vivian Vivas).

There may not be descriptions available for the films selected.  But this trailer will give you an idea of what to expect.  These images, as outre as they can sometimes be, are the product of the hard work and sweat of the human artists who made them.  Unlike the glamorized mediocrity the current generation of LLMs passes off as art, these short films are the products of artists playing with the possibilities of the cinematic medium in ways that expand preconceptions about what cinema can depict and how.

The individual filmmakers will be available for a post-screening conversation.

The final day of the Studio 8 Film Festival moves over to the Roxie Theater for the “Studio 8 Legacy Award program (12:30 PM on November 8, 2026).”  Earlier festivals have done tributes to such SFAI former teachers as experimental animator (and Canyon Cinema co-founder) Lawrence Jordan and experimental feminist filmmaker Gunvor Nelson.  This year’s event honors a former alumnus, one whose work deals with such themes as social engagement and spirituality.  

This year’s honoree is 1977 Masters In Film graduate Babeth Mondini-VanLoo.  This founder of the International Buddhist Film Festival Europe currently serves as the festival’s director.   Among her many credits, she’s studied under and made films with (and about) famed sculptor and performance artist Joseph Beuys   

Aside from the awards presentation, the program includes a rare screening of the following VanLoo underground films from the 1970s:

“Berlin Wall & Sex Pistols” shows what happens when footage of the Berlin Wall is combined with footage of a Sex Pistols concert.  The Wall was still standing at the time this film was made in 1978.  On the other hand, the seminal punk band was on the point of collapsing.  The film’s footage is taken from the Sex Pistols’ final concert at San Francisco’s Winterland Arena.

16mm footage of Arnold Schwarzenegger at 1976’s Mr. Olympic competition provides the raw material for the short “Arnold Schwarzenegger - The Art Of Bodybuilding.”  But VanLoo’s film isn’t about celebrating the former California governor’s physique.  It’s about considering bodybuilding as sculpture, spectacle, performance, and even image construction.

Did VanLoo’s short “Not Guilty: For Keith Richards” help the Rolling Stone guitarist/songwriter beat his 1977 drug rap?  The program notes give no indication.  But what they do mention is that famed filmmaker Abel Ferrara makes an onscreen appearance here.

The program’s longest short “Chance Versus Causality” will be projected on a double screen.  The film focuses on famed “snare-picture” artist Daniel Spoerri and the Nouveau Realisme art movement.   But it also hops from San Francisco to Paris to Cologne, and features encounters with the works of such artists as environmental artist Christo, Dada sculptor Jean Tinguely, and socially committed experimental sculptor Niki de Saint Phalle.  Finally, the film’s soundtrack was created by the original lineup of Cabaret Voltaire.

After the screening, local curator Tanya Zimbardo will hold a conversation with VanLoo. 

Whether you want to enjoy some punk nostalgia or want to see what the new generation of avant-garde filmmakers is up to, the Studio 8 Film Festival will zap your mind with images you won’t find at a cookie cutter multiplex.