On April 19 at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco, the ATA Film & Video Festival will be hosting a special springtime retrospective screening celebrating their 5th anniversary, pulling together films from each year they’ve been in operation. The festivities start at 7:30 p.m.

As a program of the Artists’ Television Access non-profit center, which began in the early ’80s, the Film & Video Festival was founded in 2006 and has always been run by co-directors and programmers Isabel Fondevila and Shae Green. In it’s brief history, the fest has quickly become one of the most significant experimental media events in the world. Each year, they screen a diverse range of cutting edge, avant-garde, playful and artistic short films and videos from an international pool of filmmakers.

In addition to the annual festival in San Francisco, held in October of every year, Fondevila and Green have also toured the world with the fest’s films for special outreach screenings, in places such as Madrid, Iceland, Moscow, New York City and Hong Kong.

For the past four years, the ATA Fest has sent the Underground Film Journal screening copies of its films, so I’ve seen most, but not all, of the ones at this special anniversary screening. Being able to see this fantastic work every year has become one of the site’s biggest annual highlights and has introduced me to the work of several wonderful artists who will be included in this retrospective, including Paul Clipson, Sam Barnett and Zachary Epcar.

There will also be work by acclaimed underground filmmakers Martha Colburn and Guy Maddin; plus, a selection of fun and exciting experimental media by John Palmer, Jibz Cameron, Olga Chernysheva, Ariel Diaz and more.

The full lineup is below and films that I have seen are linked to their reviews. Then, below that, is the official retrospective trailer with clips from several of the films screening.

Animal, Animal, dir. Tommy Becker
Breathe, dir. Sam Barnett
Kogel Vogel, dir. Federico Campanale
The Promise of Bio-Marketing the Human Mind, dir. Carl Diehl
Marmot, dir. Olga Chernysheva
A Time Shared Unlimited, dir. Zachary Epcar
Myth Labs, dir. Martha Colburn
Who’s Afraid, dir. John Palmer
I, A Director, dir. Rachel Manera
Ants (Ants Ants Ants), dir. Clare Samuel & Candice Purwin
Quiet Storm, dir. Jibz Cameron & Hedia Maron
Sissy Boy Slap Party, dir. Guy Maddin (Watch online)
Elro, dir. Ariel Diaz
Bump Past Cut Up Through Windows, dir. Paul Clipson