This Week at SF Film Society | NEW PEOPLE Cinema is the continuation of CORPO CELESTE, MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ: THE ARTIST IS PRESENT, and THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY (Part Six)!

June 29 – July 5
(Directed by Alice Rohrwacher)
2:30, 4:30, 6:30, 8:30pm

Mixing neo-realism with a touch of Buñuelian satire, Alice Rohrwacher’s assured first feature observes through the eyes of its 13-year-old protagonist how the institutional Catholicism that pervades life in a Calabrian town has become divorced from its spiritual underpinnings. Marta (Yle Vianello), who has just moved to Italy from Switzerland with her mother and older sister, is preparing for her Catholic confirmation while the town readies for a visit from a famous bishop. She approaches the world with a quiet curiosity that is at odds with a community whose social life revolves around the ceremonial trappings of religion, but which lacks any deeper engagement with faith. Poignant, nuanced and funny, Corpo Celeste heralds the arrival of a filmmaker to watch. More info >>

July 6 – 12
(Directed by Matthew Akers)
2:45, 5:00, 7:15, 9:30pm

Marina Abramović has been called “the grandmother of performance art,” although she’s as youthful as ever in Matthew Akers’s fascinating, visually crisp documentary portrait, which tracks Abramović’s celebrated 2010 MOMA retrospective. The Serbian-born artist made work in the 1970s concerning the limits and conceptions of the body that have long since become part of the modern art canon, yet she still continues to athletically press at the boundaries of performance art. Granted a yearlong all-access pass, Akers captures Abramović’s many selves as she stages this major exhibition. The documentary befits its subject: It’s a sleek, unerring look in the eye of an extraordinary artist. More info >>

July 7
12:00pm noon
Adapted from his book of the same name, Mark Cousins’ epic exploration of film—its distant and recent past, and even its future—has something of interest for everyone from the mildly curious to the hardcore cineaste. Part six: “The Arrival of Multiplexes and Asian Mainstream” (1970s); “Fight the Power: Protest in Film” (1980s). More info >>