In 1922, legendary German director FW Murnau stunned the world with his unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. Facing a lawsuit from Stoker’s widow, a German high court ordered every copy of the film to be seized and destroyed. One copy survived in Los Angeles, and today the film is considered one of the greatest vampire films ever made. For over 100 years, the vampire Count Orlok has cast a terrifying shadow over all who dare cross his path in this classic work of German Expressionist cinema. Face your fears and experience the original gothic horror tale at the Laguna Art Museum, featuring a reception of small bites and refreshments, live music followed by a brief presentation by film professor and historian John Trafton.

Set in East Los Angeles, this coming-of-age story centers on the struggles of Anna (Academy Award nominee America Ferrera) and her domineering family. This screening will be moderated by special guest film critic Claudia Puig.

Vidiots welcomes groundbreaking filmmaker Charles Burnett for a special screening of his mystical dark comedy masterpiece To Sleep With Anger. Interweaving family, folklore, superstition, tradition, and modernism – Burnett’s smoldering and poetic film remains a brilliant and vital piece of filmmaking. Danny Glover (fresh off two Lethal Weapons) plays Harry – a southern drifter who visits his old friend in South Central Los Angeles and begins to turn everyone’s world towards chaos.

Conversation with filmmaker Charles Burnett and composer Stephen Taylor before the screening.

Presented in collaboration with Occidental College’s Media Arts and Culture Department.

Cult horror classic Messiah of Evil is a counterculture zombie film set in Southern California about a young woman who goes searching for her missing pop artist father. The event will be moderated by special guest Professor Amy Lyford.

Set in L.A.’s Little Tokyo neighborhood, Samuel Fuller’s L.A. film noir starring James Shigeta is a rare example of progressive-minded depictions of racial relations and portrayals of an Asian-American lead character during this period of film history. This event is moderated by Professor Vivian Lin and will also feature two short films from Visual Communications on life and culture in Little Tokyo.

Dark alleyways. Seedy nightclubs. Double-crossing. Let’s venture into the shadow world of neo-noir. This time, however, we are going global. Join us for another choose-your-own adventure Film Talk with John Trafton. In this film talk, the audience guides our journey around the world for an exciting twist on a classic Film Talk. 

We’ll plunge into the neon-lit world of Asian noir with films like Fallen Angels and Burning. You’ll drive at top speed through the streets of Latin America with films from Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil. We’ll feel the chill of Scandinavian noir with Insomnia and the Pusher trilogy. Where else will we go? Canada, Italy, Nigeria, New Zealand, India, Taiwan, or perhaps…North Dakota. Join us January 17 for a journey into global neo-noir.  

This Film Talk is associated with a screening of Amores Perros at SIFF Cinema Uptown on January 15, 2024 at 7:00pm.

Los Angeles was a cinematic city before the movies arrived. By the dawn of the twentieth century, photography, painting, and tourism in Southern California provided early filmmakers with a model for how to build a myth-making business and envision ideal moviegoers. In his new book Movie-Made Los Angeles, film professor and author John Trafton explores how Hollywood was the product of art forms that flourished here in Laguna Beach. Join us for a journey through Southern California’s rise to the movie capital. We will explore the first film shot in California (right here in Laguna), the earliest version of The Wizard of Oz (29 years before Judy Garland wore the ruby slippers), and World War I movies shot in Orange County’s sycamore canyons.

Join film professor and author John Trafton to learn about Laguna’s links to early Hollywood. Meet the author who will be signing copies of his new book, Movie-Made Los Angeles, following the program.

Los Angeles was a cinematic city before the movies arrived. By the dawn of the twentieth century, photography, painting, and tourism in Southern California provided early filmmakers with a model for how to build a myth-making business and envision ideal moviegoers. In his new book Movie-Made Los Angeles, film professor and author John Trafton explores how Hollywood was the product of art forms that flourished here in Laguna Beach. Join us for a journey through Southern California’s rise to the movie capital. We will explore the first film shot in California (right here in Laguna), the earliest version of The Wizard of Oz (29 years before Judy Garland wore the ruby slippers), and World War I movies shot in Orange County’s sycamore canyons.

By the 1920s, motion picture regularly provided audiences with a unifying language through which to read visual messages with a greater level of sophistication. The population of Los Angeles doubled from 1920 to 1925, and home designers, recognizing this new population’s media literacy, responded by producing residential architecture that scholars have termed “California eclectic”: the random grazing among historical styles that reflected a growing interplay between film architecture and locale architecture. This paper will explore California eclectic as a form of cinematic intertext, architecture as one of a film’s multiple voices extended beyond the screen world to residents who were well-versed in the immersive, near-cinematic experiences of turn-of-the-century visual culture. Two key factors behind California eclectic’s ascendancy will be considered. First, the San Diego and San Francisco expositions of 1915 promoted a distinct California look-and-feel, a standard to which complex multimedia forms, such as California eclectic, could aspire. Second, the increased popularity of historical drama films during the 1920s fueled the rise of studio-based research libraries that made thousands of photographs and illustrations available to art directors, production designers, and, by extension, residential architects

This month, The Godfather turns fifty-years-old. The first chapter in the Corleone family saga continues to fascinate audiences and inspire filmmakers around the world. This special SIFF event will explore the legacy of Coppola’s film in the twenty-first century, but in a way that is very different from how you may have experienced the film previously.

Prepare yourself for an immersive experience in which you will choose your own path through the world of the film, as we look at filming locations in New York City, Sicily, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area. Visit the Corleone Mansion on Long Island (in reality a Staten Island location). Travel to the Woltz mansion and stables in Los Angeles, a former Hearst estate. Roam the hills of Sicily with Michael and his bodyguards. And explore Coppola’s home city of San Francisco during the early 1970s, a bohemian environment that fueled the film’s pre-production.

This SIFF Film Talk will be presented in person at the SIFF Film Center and livestreamed via Zoom. Purchase a ticket below for either in-person attendance at the Film Center or for livestream access.

Week 5 of BANNED! will focus on Martin Scorsese’s controversial film The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) and Wanuri Kahiu’s Rafiki (2018), a Kenyan film banned in its home country for its positive depiction of lesbian romance.

Rafiki screens at the SIFF Film Center on February 8 in advance of this SIFF Film Talk.

This SIFF Film Talk will be presented in person at the SIFF Film Center and livestreamed via Zoom. Purchase a ticket below for either in-person attendance at the Film Center or for livestream access. You may also purchase a full series pass for access to all BANNED! Film Talks and screenings.

Week 4 of BANNED! will focus on Nagisa Oshima’s In the Realm of the Senses (1976), a pornographic art film from Japan, and the delightfully blasphemous Monty Python’s The Life of Brian (1979), directed by Terry Jones.

In the Realm of the Senses screens at the SIFF Film Center on January 25 in advance of this SIFF Film Talk.

This SIFF Film Talk will be presented in person at the SIFF Film Center and livestreamed via Zoom. Purchase a ticket below for either in-person attendance at the Film Center or for livestream access. You may also purchase a full series pass for access to all BANNED! Film Talks and screenings.

Week 3 of BANNED! will focus on obscenity and censorship through Vilgot Sjoman’s I am Curious (Yellow) and John Waters’ Pink Flamingos.

This SIFF Film Talk will be presented in person at the SIFF Film Center and livestreamed via Zoom. Purchase a ticket below for either in-person attendance at the Film Center or for livestream access. You may also purchase a full series pass for access to all BANNED! Film Talks and screenings.

Week 2 of BANNED! will focus on anti-war films All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone, 1930) and The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1967).

The Battle of Algiers screens at the SIFF Film Center on January 18 in advance of this SIFF Film Talk.

This SIFF Film Talk will be presented in person at the SIFF Film Center and livestreamed via Zoom. Purchase a ticket below for either in-person attendance at the Film Center or for livestream access. You may also purchase a full series pass for access to all BANNED! Film Talks and screenings.

Week 1 of BANNED! will focus on silent era films Birth Control (Margaret Sanger, 1917) and Häxan (Benjamin Christensen, 1922).

This SIFF Film Talk will be presented in person at the SIFF Film Center and livestreamed via Zoom. Purchase a ticket below for either in-person attendance at the Film Center or for livestream access. You may also purchase a full series pass for access to all BANNED! Film Talks and screenings.

Dude! Have you ever noticed that … wait for it … being stoned and watching movies go hand-in-hand? This has been true long before the psychedelic '60s. Movies interact with our subconscious. Film editing has always played around with our sense of time. Innovations in cinematography have always experimented with space and perception. And, of course, let’s not forget the impact of popular music on filmmaking—including and especially music inspired by “sweet Mary Jane.”

In this class, we will look at the origins of the “stoner film” and the impact of marijuana on visual storytelling. We will laugh uncontrollably at cannabis comedies like The Big Lebowski, Cheech and Chong films, and the adventures of Kevin Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob. We will find enlightenment … maybe … in films like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Easy Rider, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. And we will feel the music in movies like Fantasia, Woodstock, and Babylon.

Slice into the world of Hannibal Lecter beginning with his gothic literary origins, his basis in American crime journalism, and, ultimately, his the brilliant portrayals in film and television.