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!

Upcoming Screenings

Five Days Til Tomorrow, by Lewis Klahr

Lew Klahr: From 45 To 33 -- Part 1: Fable by the Door

Date: Sep 13, 2026 1:00PM
Location: 2220 Arts + Archives

World premiere! Lew Klahr in person! "This new series is a cinema of shifting moods and engagements that offers a tactile exploration of elliptical narrative and poetic montage. Like a waking dream, what can be clearly described in words is less significant than what can be felt." — Lew Klahr

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Stand By for Failure: A Documentary About Negativland

Date: Sep 19, 2026 1:00PM
Location: 2220 Arts + Archives

LA Premiere with Negativland in person! “Much of the film layers eviscerated visuals into a vaudevillian media kaleidoscope.” - Marc Weidenbaum, The Wire

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Pond Life Spring, by Amy Lockhart

Mercy for the Messy: The films of Amy Lockhart

Date: Sep 27, 2026 7:30PM
Location: 2220 Arts + Archives

Amy Lockhart in person! Amy Lockhart is one of the defining voices in contemporary independent animation. Her influence stretches across independent animation, contemporary art, and studio television, with artists and filmmakers regularly citing her as an inspiration. Lockhart’s work is DIY without being slight, punk without being precious, and funny without ever filing down the weird. Across paper, pencil, 16mm, collage, puppets, cheap software, and whatever else is around, she has built a body of work that is crude, sharp, and completely her own.

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A note on the ruins for visitors

Dicky Bahto: A note on the ruins for visitors

Date: Oct 4, 2026 7:30PM
Location: 2220 Arts & Archives

A note on the ruins for visitors is a deeply personal portrait of the Assyrian community from fragments of material drawn from Bahto's family history, ancient artifacts, and collaborations with contemporary artists working across the diaspora. The film features visual artwork, music, and writing by, as well as portraits of, Assyrian, Chaldean, and other artists drawing on Assyrian culture, language, and music, including Esther Elia, Maryam Yousif, Lolita Emmanuel, Tenise Marie, Sami Seif, Monette Eiliazadeh, Deena Ana, Andrew Najor, Anna Kingsley, Rami Kingsley, Enanna Sheena, and more.

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The 21st Century Century: A Durational Performance Conceived by Barbara T. Smith

Filmforum 50, program 14: The 21st Century Odyssey

Start Date: Oct 17, 2026 1:00PM
End Date: Oct 17, 2026 5:00PM
Location: 2220 Arts + Archives

Rescheduled from June. The 21st Century Odyssey is a video travelogue through love, liberatory technology, social and personal mythology, and the pleasures and rigors of making life into art told in part through the pixelated beauty of the videophone. Though rarely screened, it is a rich and resonant chapter in the legendary Barbara T. Smith’s career-long experiments with machine innovation. Co-director Barbara T. Smith in conversation with Michael J. Masucci!

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