No longer the young upstart, CROSSROADS has established itself as one of North America’s major showcases for avant-garde and experimental film, video and multimedia work.
— Michael Sicinski, UZAK 27

Established in 2010, CROSSROADS is San Francisco Cinematheque’s annual film festival, celebrating contemporary non-commercial cinema and experimental media by artists from the international art and film community. Now in its ninth year, the festival celebrates contemporary artist-made cinema, stimulating aesthetic dialogue between artists and inspiring audiences with rich experiences of experimental film not provided by any other local venue.

CROSSROADS 2018, consisting of ten curated programs of film, video, and performance, includes 76 works by 62 artists representing 18 countries. Major themes include techno-phobia/techno-philia and resistance to contemporary surveillance culture, visual expressions of philosophical inquiry and spirituality, adventurous portraiture (of self and others), projections of eternity, the burdens of mortality, and the ecstatic freedoms of analog media.

This year’s festival also includes a special presentation in the Gina and Stuart Peterson White Box on Floor 4. Specially curated by San Francisco Cinematheque’s artistic director, Steve Polta, the selection of film and video works respond to SFMOMA exhibitions The Train: RFK’s Last Journey and René Magritte: The Fifth Season.

SFMOMA is proud to partner with San Francisco Cinematheque for the presentation of CROSSROADS 2018, dedicated to the memory of filmmaker Paul Clipson.

Header image: Colectivo los ingrávidos, The Sun Quartet, part 3: Conflagration, 2017; photo: courtesy the artist