Screening: Total Mobile Home: microCinema retrospective

In 1994, filmmakers Rebecca Barten and David Sherman began illegally operating Total Mobile Home microCinema out of the basement of their rented apartment on McCoppin Street (near the corner of Market and Valencia) in San Francisco. Doing so, they accidentally coined the term “microcinema” and set into motion a new model for what a cinema could be — a small gathering space rather than a large receptacle for spectacles. Barten and Sherman will survey the history of Total Mobile Home, through their touring program that includes films: Emily Richardson’s The Futurist, Lynne Sachs’ Carolee, Barbara and Gunvor, Harun Farocki’s Parallel II, and Scott Stark’s Degrees of Limitation; restored video documentation of Luther Price performing Clown 2: Scary Transformation and Stuart Sherman performing A Christmas Spectacle; 16 mm footage by Guy Sherwin of a salon with Bruce Baillie; George Kuchar’s video portrait of the space, Cellar Sinema; a re-examination of TMH’s Home Mail Project, that included photographs by Carolee Schneemann, Robert Frank, and Rudy Burckhardt; as well as recorded oral histories from Brian Frye, Steve Anker, and other eyewitnesses. This program presented by David Sherman and Rebecca Barten.

A special program of Experiments in Cinema v20.0, which runs April 16-20 2025 in Albuquerque, NM. More information about the festival at www.experimentsincinema.org