Straight from the Haight

Presented by Canyon Cinema

With the emergence of Canyon Cinema, that foundational film presenter and distributor, in the early Sixties, there was a visible upsurge of interest in experimental and artisanal filmmaking in the Bay Area. This, in turn, inspired the creation of a number of haphazardly-cobbled micro-cinemas, some lasting but months, but marked by a broadening embrace of handcrafted experimentation.

This program looks specifically at the Straight-Ashbury Viewing Society, an adjunct of the short-lived Straight Theater on Haight Street, assembling a group of seminal films that screened there in the fall of 1966. Accompanying this screening will be an informal discussion of other mid-Sixties venues, such as the Cinematheque Coffeehouse, Fether’s Point, and the S.M. Eisenstein Memorial Cinema Institute.