2026 San Francisco Dance Film Festival

Dance Heals

Global voices turn pain into power, adversity into art.

Wednesday, November 4 at 7:00PM

Catharine Clark Gallery

Runtime: 60 minutes, with a live performance.

General Admission $25 / Arts Patron $45

Presented at Catharine Clark Gallery, Dance Heals gathers eight films that meet some of life’s hardest realities and answer them with movement. Ukrainian women wield choreography as testimony. A flamenco master performs in clothing historically reserved for women. A double amputee becomes a withered tree blooming anew. Each piece is less about the wound than what grows from it, blending poetry, cinematography, and activism in service of repair.

Co-curated by laura elaine ellis and followed by a panel discussion, the screening is presented alongside a concurrent exhibition by Los Angeles-based artist Sandow Birk, whose work confronting history, justice, and war offers a compelling companion lens for these stories. A live performance by Dazaun Soleyn and Jordan E. Daubney will precede the films. Come witness what movement can hold, and what it can mend.

Doors open with access to the reception and gallery: 6:30PM
Program begins: 7:00PM

Viewing note: mature content. Please refer to film descriptions for details.

Program Films:

A shirtless dancer with dramatic grey face paint throws their head back with their mouth open, extending both arms outward. A single spotlight illuminates the performer against a completely dark background, emphasizing the intensity of the pose.

A survivor seeks refuge in a clinic that has other plans for him.

Quilan Cue Arnold

Quilan Cue Arnold

(United State, 2025) 9:38 minutes

Lowelyfe Episode 1: The Only Way Out Is ...

A person stands in a softly lit room with a cream shawl draped over their shoulders, sweeping it dramatically through the foreground with their right arm creating a blur across the camera. Beside them, large billowing white coat hangs on a coat rack, and framed photos adorn the wall.

A flamenco legend risks it all.

Jaime Dezcallar

Manuel Liñán

(Spain, 2026) 5:35 minutes

The Flight of the Shawl

Three performers dressed in white stand together on a rocky beach, leaning their heads and bodies against one anothers shoulders in a relaxed, interconnected line parallel to the camera, their gazes relaxed and reflective. The dark rock formations behind them contrast with their light clothing.

Three women, three systems, one language the body refuses to surrender.

Antwan Williams

Antwan Williams, Amie Dowling, Skylear Palacios, Ahja Henry, Mary Jane Agnew

(United States, 2026) 10:45 minutes

Until Then

A shirtless person with long dark hair tied in a bun stands waist-deep in calm water, looking down at their hands. The background is blurred blue, suggesting a lake or sea.

Fate took his legs. It could not take his roots.

Yu Zhang, Jiangbo Cao, Xiang Li, Yanan Xing

Cao Jiangbo

(China, 2026) 4:12 minutes

A Withered Tree Revives

A person wearing a red, white, and blue jacket poses with one arm bent over their head and the other on their midsection, set against a dark background.

Once caged for the gaze of others, now they turn to look back.

Ghaliah Conroy, C.J. Roxas

Ghaliah Conroy

(Netherlands, 2024) 5:25 minutes

SUNKEN WORKS/don’t bite

A group of dancers stand tightly aligned in line on a rooftop, their arms rasied and layered behind one another to create the illusion of a single figure with multiple arms. In front, a dancer with long brown hair wearing an olive-green military style shirt holds their hands up in a gesture of surrender, while a Ukranian flag waves in the background.

What survives a war, and what the body still remembers.

Beatrice Allegranti

Beatrice Allegranti

(Ukraine, 2026) 11:19 minutes

Unarmed

Aerial view of a diverse group of dancers, some in wheelchairs, holding hands in a circular formation, wearing white outfits on a brown floor.

From an angle rarely seen, nine bodies redefine what beauty can be.

Marisa Hamamoto

Phillip Chbeeb

(United States, 2025) 1:34 minutes

#ThisIsDance ENVISION

A young person in a bright yellow shirt and a colorful floral headpiece stands in a grassy field, holding two rectangular wooden blocks toward the camera. A calm lake and lush greenery stretch behind them beneath a partly blue cloudy sky.

A group of young dancers revive a nearly vanished ritual dance, learning its rhythms from the last four elders who still carry it in their bodies.

Adrián Villa-Dávila, Andrés Prado

DANZAS Y ENSEÑANZAS DEMMIS ABUELOS - Javier Serpa

(Colombia, 2026) 11:00 minutes

Sheltering Gestures

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Program Co-Presenters:

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A person with bold red eye makeup, a thin red line across their face at eye level, wears multiple ornate earrings, and looks confidently at the camera against a clear blue sky.

Tamara Flores – Chingona

Two hands reach towards eachother across a colorful surface covered with intricate, coiled rope-like patterns in blue, green, orange, and pink. The hands barely touch and trace the textured shapes.

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A person in a long white dress and white face makeup runs down a colorful hallway with red decorations hanging from the ceiling. The hall features framed art on the walls and a combination of brick and wood details.

The Other Within（一身万物）

A performer in a red blue and yellow jester-like costume with a white ruffled collar stands among a row of grapevines, looking upwards between the clusters of grapes hanging above their head.

Grape Maestro