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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 50th 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! 

Newt Leaders Still

Newt Leaders, by Amy Halpern

Upcoming Screenings

  • Venus transit 2012 1 smaller

    Venus Transit 2012 (NASA)

    Experimentations 12: Images of Broken Light: Indexicality in Astronomy II (Rescheduled)

    Date: Feb 23, 2025 3:00PM
    Location: 2220 Arts + Archives

    Experimentations: Imag(in)ing Knowledge in Film, Program 12.  This showcase presents a series of films related to astronomy that examine how scientific knowledge depends on traces left directly by natural phenomena themselves - so-called "indexical" images. Before being ideas, scientific theories are themselves constituted by image making. With computer-generated imagery, it has become increasingly difficult to recognize the indexicality of the film image, mainly because of simulation. With increasingly aestheticized images, scientific images in turn are captured from distant spaces, through sophisticated hybrid technologies, very different from the optical array images of telescopes. 

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  • GOS Untitled 2022 Peter Burr smaller

    Excerpt from "Untitled" by Peter Burr, as seen in The Universe in a Grain of Sand

    Experimentations 19: The Universe in a Grain Sand

    Date: Feb 23, 2025 7:00PM
    Location: 2220 Arts + Archives

    A meditation by the award-winning filmmaker/physicist Mark Levinson (Particle Fever) on how we make sense of the world. Juxtaposing scientific developments with the works of artists, the visually rich film explores how both scientists and artists use their understanding of nature to create tools and representations to probe the deepest mysteries of the universe. This art-film crossed with creative documentary takes us on a journey from experimental film to the frontiers of quantum computing.  Preceded by a few of the short experimental films incorporated in the feature by Levinson as the visual corollaries to points being made in the film.  We’re delighted that one of these makers, Kate Balsley, will join us in person with two of her beautiful films.

     

     

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  • 1925 our heavenly bodies 014 jumping v2

    Our Heavenly Bodies

    Experimentations 11: Our Heavenly Bodies (Rescheduled)

    Date: Mar 7, 2025 7:30PM
    Location: Brain Dead

    Experimentations: Imag(in)ing Knowledge in Film, Program 11.  Three silent films from the 1920s demonstrate the state-of-the-art of the time.  Two educational films from 1920, “If We Lived on the Moon” by Max Fleischer, later of Betty Boop and Superman cartoon fame, and “Tides and the Moon” show basic illustrative educational films of the time.  Live music by Dave Harrington and Friends!  Rescheduled from January 10 and February 27.

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  • wrought film still decaying leaf mosaic copy v2

    Wrought, by Anna Sigrithur & Joel Penner

    Experimentations 13: Natural History in Experimental and Artist Animation (Rescheduled)

    Date: Mar 9, 2025 1:00PM
    Location: 2220 Arts + Archives

    Experimentations: Imag(in)ing Knowledge in Film, Program 13, rescheduled.  It is impossible to overestimate the influence of scientific knowledge on artists’ investigations of the world, and nowhere is this influence more apparent than in contemporary moving image artists’ responses to the climate crisis. In the context of mass extinction and global climate change, the science of ecology underlies key issues currently facing humanity, and, thus, ecological considerations are understandably pervasive in contemporary moving image artworks. This program presents a selection of works that engage with aspects of ecology in the form of natural history. 

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  • 6. Tomorrowland by Goang Ming YUAN 01 smaller

    Tomorrowland 明日樂園 by Goang-Ming YUAN

    Then<·>Now: Taiwan Experimental Film and Video Arts, Part 2

    Date: Mar 9, 2025 7:30PM
    Location: 2220 Arts + Archives

    Part 2 in our series focuses on "events": events in history, events outside of history, the moments when events are recorded, and the moments when events are screened, watched, and discussed. Communicating these events is like retelling history in a non-linear way. Some of the stories here are closely related to Taiwan, such as the life fragments of Kinmen soldiers in 03:04 by Ting-Fu Huang, while others revolve around the artist’s personal reflections, on migration, memory, and the symbiotic moments of life and cinema.

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