Spring 2026
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The American Sector
The American Sector, by Courtney Stephens and Pacho Velez
Date: Apr 1, 2026 7:30PM
Location: Philosophical Research SocietyJoin us in screening Courtney Stephens and Pacho Velez’s 2020 documentary The American Sector, following the array of paths that fragments of the Berlin Wall have taken across the USA.
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Edge of Alchemy, by Stacey Steers
Stacey Steers: Alchemical Collages
Date: Apr 14, 2026 7:30PM
Location: 2220 Arts + ArchivesAnimator Stacey Steers joins us in person! Weaving together archetype, allegory, and wonder, Steers’ films create a mythos all their own. Her heroines, lifted from early 20th-century silent films, ebb toward eternity, inky waves alight in their swell.
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Conical Intersect (1975), courtesy of the Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark
The Films of Gordon Matta-Clark
Date: Apr 19, 2026 1:00PM
Location: 2220 Arts + ArchivesGordon Matta-Clark, the artist, urban explorer, and “anarchitect” most famous for the “building cuts” he performed on various decomposing structures in the 1970s, made 18 short films before his untimely death from cancer in 1978. This program collects six of his films shot between 1972 and 1976, documenting four building cuts, one formal experiment, and one car crash. Special guests Jessamyn Fiore, Director of the Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark, and critic Dylan Adamson.
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Harry Smith (ca. 1965), photo by John Palmer
Harry Smith & the Alchemy of Abstraction Featuring Devandra Banhart & Friends Live!
Date: Apr 25, 2026 7:30PM
Location: Philosophical Research SocietyJoin us for the opening night of The Philosophical Research Society and the Harry Smith Archive’s long-awaited series, THE COSMIC COLLAGE OF HARRY SMITH with HARRY SMITH & THE ALCHEMY OF ABSTRACTION—a one-night event offering an immersive, in-depth journey into the work of one of the most singular figures of the American avant-garde, culminating in a live performance by the acclaimed, genre-defying musician and visual artist Devendra Banhart and friends.
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Filmforum 50, program 11: Flaming Creatures: The Films of Jack Smith
Date: Apr 26, 2026 7:30PM
Location: 2220 Arts + ArchivesJack Smith (1932–1989) was a New York-based filmmaker, photographer, and actor known for his pioneering influence in experimental filmmaking and performance art. We hosted a more complete retrospective of his work in the late 1990s. Flaming Creatures, his most well-known film, often targeted for banning, is still rarely screening. Come to this rare opprtunity to see it and more on 16mm!
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Mind Maps: Exploring Harry Smith’s Hermetic Allusions - Screening & Panel Discussion
Date: May 7, 2026 7:30PM
Location: Philosophical Research SocietyA multimedia presentation and panel exploring the esoteric aspects of Harry Smith’s visual art and creative practice! This event is part of the series THE COSMIC COLLAGE OF HARRY SMITH (April 25-May 31), co-presented by The Philosophical Research and Harry Smith Archives. Includes a screening of Harry Smith's Late Superimpositions (1964) and more!
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Simca Vega Cricket, ©Kevin Jerome Everson; courtesy the artist; trilobite-arts DAC; Picture Palace Pictures
Watching the Way You Move: An Evening with Kevin Jerome Everson
Date: May 12, 2026 7:30PM
Location: 2220 Arts + ArchivesFilmforum welcomes back Kevin Jerome Everson with a compelling array of recent work (and one from 2016), ranging from observations of bird-watchers to a powerful examination of the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, to a short tribute to Gail Fisher, the first Black woman to win an Emmy.
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The Sun Quartet I (2017), by Los Ingrávidos
Cosmic Rage: A Fundraiser for the LA Tenants Union & Community Self-Defense Coalition Los Angeles
Date: May 17, 2026 2:00PM
Location: 2220 Arts + ArchivesA Fundraiser for the LA Tenants Union (LATU) & Community Self-Defense Coalition Los Angeles (CSDCLA). COSMIC RAGE is a program that presents formally subversive explorations of migration, empire, ritual and revolt. The films will be followed by a live performance with Jazmin Romero and a DJ set by gh0sttaste.
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Adam Green Explains Harry Smith + Heaven & Earth Magic
Date: May 21, 2026 7:30PM
Location: Philosophical Research SocietyA lecture by artist, musician, and Harry Smith Enthusiast Adam Green in person plus screening of Smith's renowned film, Heaven and Earth Magic! This event is part of the series THE COSMIC COLLAGE OF HARRY SMITH (April 25-May 31), co-presented by The Philosophical Research and Harry Smith Archives.
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It’s Coming Up (1997) by Raphael Montañez Ortiz
The Computer-Laser-Videos of Raphael Montañez Ortiz
Date: May 30, 2026 10:55PM
Location: Billy Wilder Theater, Hammer MuseumPart of the 2026 UCLA Festival of Preservation. Introduction by UCLA Distinguished Professor Chon Noriega, School of Theater, Film and Television, and Processing Conservator Yesenia Perez. "A key figure in the Destruction in Art movement of the 1960s, Ortiz is best known for his object-based work and performance art, most notably his piano destruction concerts. However, his expansive oeuvre of time-based media art also merits revisiting. Ortiz experimented with film starting in the late 1950s, creating found-footage films that deconstruct/reconstruct conventional Hollywood, newsreel and instructional films as a means of combating the xenophobia, classism and repression manifested within them." - Yesenia Perez
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Filmforum 50, program 12: Harry Smith’s Film #18: Mahagonny
Date: May 31, 2026 4:00PM
Location: 2220 Arts + ArchivesThe closing night of The Cosmic Collage of Harry Smith: Smith’s final film, the epic four-screen projection Mahagonny. Based on Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, it is an allegory of contemporary life; it explores the needs and desires of man amid the rituals of daily life in New York City. Smith’s New York, like Mahagonny, is a place where everything is permitted and the only sin is not having enough money. Much of the film takes place within the Chelsea Hotel. The film contains invaluable cameos of important avant-garde figures such as Allen Ginsberg, Patti Smith, and Jonas Mekas, intercut with installation pieces from Robert Mapplethorpe’s studio, New York City landmarks of the era, and Smith’s visionary animation.
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Duke Ellington and Orchestra 1963
Filmforum 50, program 13: Improvisations 2026: An Evening with Mark Cantor
Date: Jun 7, 2026 7:30PM
Location: 2220 Arts + ArchivesA fantastic array of jazz films, presented by Mark Cantor, who did his first public programs of his jazz film collection at Pasadena Filmforum in February 1977! Including performances by Rahsaan Roland Kirk, World Saxophone Quartet, Dizzy Gillespie and Helen Humes, Miles Davis, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Phil Woods (recreating Bird with Strings), Blind Boys of Mississippi, Duke Ellington, Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five, and Dinah Washington!
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Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock’n’Roll
Date: Jun 11, 2026 6:30PM
Location: Brand LibraryThrough the eyes, words and songs of its popular music stars of the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s, DON’T THINK I’VE FORGOTTEN: CAMBODIA’S LOST ROCK AND ROLL examines and unravels Cambodia’s tragic past. Combining interviews with surviving musicians and never-before-seen archival material and rare songs, the film tracks the winding course of Cambodian music as it morphs into a unique style of rock and roll. In person conversation after the show with Chhom Nimol and Senon Williams from the band Dengue Fever and Filmforum director Adam Hyman
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The 21st Century Century: A Durational Performance Conceived by Barbara T. Smith
POSTPONED Filmforum 50, program 14: The 21st Century Odyssey
Start Date: Jun 14, 2026 1:00PM
End Date: Jun 14, 2026 5:00PM
Location: 2220 Arts + ArchivesPOSTPONED. New date to be announced later.
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Queer Cinema for Palestine
Date: Jun 16, 2026 7:30PM
Location: Lumiere Cinema at the Music HallThis 60-minute curated program, part of a global wave of solidarity events taking place throughout June 2026, brings together six powerful short films by queer, Palestinian, and allied artists — from historic Palestine, across the diaspora, and beyond.
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The Decay of Fiction
Filmforum 50, program 15: The Decay of Fiction in 35mm
Date: Jun 17, 2026 7:30PM
Location: Brain Dead StudiosFilmforum continues its 50th anniversary screenings with a rare 35mm screening of Pat O’Neill’s classic feature film The Decay of Fiction, a multi-layered reverie of the abandoned Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, of ghosts of old Hollywood, and film noir. We’re also going to have the DVD-Rom Tracing the Decay of Fiction available, in tribute to the late Marsha Kinder, who was behind the Labyrinth Project that created it.
We’re sorry to say that the new Pat O’Neill film Skies will not be able to screen tonight.
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The Old Sorceress and the Valet
A Night of Films by Julius-Amédée Laou
Date: Jun 24, 2026 7:30PM
Location: 2220 Arts + ArchivesLos Angeles Filmforum, Black Revivalist, and CaribbeanLens Film Festival are proud to present a double feature of films by French-Martinican playwright and filmmaker Julius-Amédée Laou. We’ll be screening Laou’s 2002 film French Wedding, Caribbean Style along with his 1987 film The Old Sorceress and the Valet. Both films will feature a pre-recorded introduction by the filmmaker!
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Mare's Nest
Mare's Nest, by Ben Rivers
Date: Jun 26, 2026 7:30PM
Location: Philosophical Research SocietyLos Angeles premiere of internationally renowned filmmaker Ben Rivers’s acclaimed new feature MARE’S NEST (2025). Set in a strange future world with no adults, where children have inherited the remnants of a fallen civilization and begun forging new forms of community, ritual, and meaning, the film follows a young girl named Moon as she wanders through a landscape shaped by ecological collapse and what remains of the world that came before.
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Mare's Nest
Mare's Nest, by Ben Rivers
Date: Jun 28, 2026 4:00PM
Location: Philosophical Research SocietyLos Angeles premiere of internationally renowned filmmaker Ben Rivers’s acclaimed new feature MARE’S NEST (2025). Set in a strange future world with no adults, where children have inherited the remnants of a fallen civilization and begun forging new forms of community, ritual, and meaning, the film follows a young girl named Moon as she wanders through a landscape shaped by ecological collapse and what remains of the world that came before.