17th Annual Bernal Heights Outdoor Cinema

Bernal Heights Outdoor Cinema (BHOC) showcases diverse work of local San Francisco Bay Area filmmakers and artists living and working in and around San Francisco’s historic Bernal Heights neighborhood. In its 17th season, BHOC features an end-of-summer 3-day festival of free screenings staged in parks, playgrounds and other venues located throughout the neighborhood on September 10-11 and 19, 2020. The festival’s schedule includes a film crawl of six venues along the neighborhood’s “Main Street”, a screening under the stars at a mini park and a season finale and neighborhood-wide party.

The BHOC line-up features short films or videos — 20 minutes or shorter— in all genres, in which: 1) local Bay Area residents have participated in any aspect of production or distribution; or 2) the subject matter or theme resonates with current sentiments, issues and challenges facing the neighborhood and residents of Bernal Heights. The Bay Area and Bernal Heights in particular have a long history of independent filmmaking and social and political activism. During the 1960s, the neighborhood was known as "Red Hill" for the anti-war activists in shared households and collectives who moved in among the working-class families of Bernal Heights. By the 1990s, Bernal's pleasant microclimate, small houses and freeway access to Silicon Valley led to the most recent wave of migration. Despite the changing demographics, Bernal Heights retains its reputation as a community of activists and independent thinkers.