Los Angeles Filmforum is the longest-running organization in Southern California dedicated exclusively to the ongoing, non-commercial exhibition of independent, experimental, and progressive media art.

Filmforum is proud to be in the center of the cultural programming of a city with a rich history of avant-garde filmmaking and programming. Now in our 48th year, we celebrate personal, hand-crafted and non-commercial work. Read more about our various programs, purchase tickets for upcoming screenings, explore our archives, or learn more about volunteering or making a tax-deductible donation on our website!

Upcoming Screenings

Space and India, by Vijay B Chandra (1971) Courtesy of Films Division of India

Experimentations 15: This Bit of That India

Date: Jan 26, 2025 7:30PM
Location: 2220 Arts + Archives

Experimentations: Imag(in)ing Knowledge in Film, program 15. The history of experimental film in India is tied to the history of India’s quest for modernity and is particularly visible in the experimental films on science and technology produced by the Films Division of India during the cultural revolution of the late 60’s and early 70’s. This program will showcase a selection of these avant-garde state supported films that reflect the radical values, perspectives and ideas that shaped the vision of Indian democracy.

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Monisme, by Riar Rizaldi

Experimentations 16: Unstable Ground: Science, Extraction, and Belief in Monisme

Date: Feb 2, 2025 3:00PM
Location: 2220 Arts + Archives

Experimentations: Imag(in)ing Knowledge in Film, Program 16. Many things collide in Riar Rizaldi’s Monisme: magic, science, indigenous knowledge systems, violence, and a tenuous boundary between the past and the future, fact and fiction. These all collide around Mount Merapi, one of the most active stratovolcano in the world, located in Java, Indonesia. Monisme’s multiple collisions ultimately illuminate the various modalities of relation between humans and nature. The screening will be followed by a panel with Riar Rizaldi, Fern Silva, and Jheanelle Brown and by a free dinner.

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Rock Bottom Riser

Experimentations 17: Resisting Western Science’s Colonial Mandate: Rock Bottom Riser

Date: Feb 2, 2025 7:00PM
Location: 2220 Arts + Archives

Experimentations: Imag(in)ing Knowledge in Film, Program 17. Rock Bottom Riser is an essential document and an exhilarating tour-de-force, a palimpsest that traverses geology, ethnography and astronomy. Silva's feature is preceded by Telengut’s short which expands on the West’s concept of indigeneity while also putting forth the indigenous Mongolian and Siberian belief in animism as a way to nourish our world.

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The Violence of a Civilization without Secrets, By Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil, and Jackson Polys

Experimentations 18: Science of the Word

Date: Feb 16, 2025 7:30PM
Location: 2220 Arts + Archives

Experimentations: Imag(in)ing Knowledge in Film, Program 18. Aimé Césaire, the late writer, politician, and co-founder of the Négritude movement, proposed a new hybrid science in 1946 — a science of the Word. He argued that the study of the Word (mythoi, a poetics of knowledge) will condition the study of nature (bios). Philosopher Sylvia Wynter, inspired by Césaire’s idea, stated that humans must now collectively undertake a rewriting of knowledge as we have known and understood it. Can science deal with and make sense of the human predicament, as Wynter calls it? How can scholars, artists, scientists, and the general public reconcile the tension between scientific and technological advancement, the earth-centered mandate of indigenous wisdom, and righting historical legacies colonial violence?

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