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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 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! 

Newt Leaders Still

Newt Leaders, by Amy Halpern

Upcoming Screenings

  • 1925 our heavenly bodies 014 jumping

    Our Heavenly Bodies (1925)

    Experimentations 11: Our Heavenly Bodies: Indexicality in Astronomy I

    Date: Jan 10, 2025 7:30PM
    Location: Brain Dead Studios

    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.  By the time of Our Heavenly Bodies, released in 1925, the cinematic possibilities had advanced greatly.  Partly a summary of what was known about the solar system, and partly a sci-fi journey on a ship to those planets, Our Heavenly Bodies was a tremendous success in its time.  

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  • Venus transit 2012 1 smaller

    Venus Transit 2012 (NASA)

    Experimentations 12: Images of Broken Light: Indexicality in Astronomy II

    Date: Jan 12, 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. Followed by a panel discussion.

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  • wrought film still decaying leaf mosaic copy

    Wrought, by Anna Sigrithur & Joel Penner

    Experimentations 13: Natural History in Experimental and Artist Animation

    Date: Jan 12, 2025 7:00PM
    Location: 2220 Arts + Archives

    Experimentations: Imag(in)ing Knowledge in Film, Program 13.  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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  • From the Belly of the Earth saber tooth tiger skeleton smaller

    From the Belly of the Earth (Uit den schoot der aarde) (1919)

    Experimentations 14: Old Nature: Natural History Films from the Silent Era

    Date: Jan 19, 2025 7:30PM
    Location: Brain Dead Studios

    Experimentations: Imag(in)ing Knowledge in Film, Program 14.  This screening of archival natural history films from the 1910s and 1920s reveals how animals, science, industry, and geography were visualized by motion pictures one hundred years ago. Beautifully preserved by the EYE Film Museum Amsterdam, most of these films feature applied color processes such as tinting, toning, or stencil coloring. Strikingly different from today's nature documentaries, these films celebrate hunting, logging, mining, and other forms of resource extraction. It is precisely the disorienting perspective of the Anthropocene viewing condition that revitalizes these century-old natural history films films with new meaning. A live performance of ambient electronic music will open access points for the audience to more fully draw out these complexities and others through the experience of public spectatorship. 

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  • Space and India T1

    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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