Cine Manifest: A Radical 1970s Film Collective

This series offers a glimpse into an intriguing, largely forgotten bit of local history. Cine Manifest, a Bay Area–based political film collective, made a few key films in the 1970s that addressed reality in all its messiness, particularly the daily challenges of those on the bottom rungs of the socioeconomic ladder. Collective members Eugene Corr, Peter Gessner, John Hanson, Judy Irola, Stephen Lighthill, Rob Nilsson, and Steve Wax engaged in what they’ve called “a social experiment” to make films that “might actually say something.” Their collaborative approach included discussions organized around memos outlining their political and aesthetic aspirations—“People inspire people. Facts don’t”—with the goal of integrating a critical process into their creative one. Corr observed in Cine Manifest, the 2006 documentary detailing the group’s history, “I think we were all a little lost . . . looking for roots to connect us to something deeper and more historic. It’s interesting that we made Over-Under, [Sideways-Down], a film about a factory worker, and that we made Northern Lights, a film about farmers.” As Wax further noted, it was unusual at the time to make politically inflected films that focused on individual lives instead of directly tackling broader issues. This impulse is apparent in the recently restored The Prairie Trilogy, a series of short documentaries featuring Henry Martinson, a political organizer in North Dakota, who is also heard in Northern Lights. Emerging from a particular moment in time, these films are just as vital to our own messy times.

Kathy Geritz, Film Curator