Best Film Programmer

Comments (0) Wednesday, May 11 2005

Edith Kramer

Senior film curator and director, Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft (at Bowditch), Berkeley, (510) 642-1124, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

From Hong Kong shoot'em-ups to Indian political documentaries, silent Swedish melodramas to forgotten '40s westerns, Edith Kramer has spotlighted every brilliant facet of world cinema during her splendid career. An old-school film buff who's happiest spending hours in a dark theater or debating a discovery with an equally obsessed colleague, Kramer joined the PFA in 1975 and became director in 1983. During her tenure, the PFA increased its collection of films and expanded its substantial library, resources that scholars and filmmakers mine regularly. But her love is programming -- conceiving series that revisit an overlooked director, introduce a rising talent, or showcase an out-of-style genre or country. "Edgar G. Ulmer: The Man From Planet B," a recent retrospective that spanned Yiddish movies and the noir touchstone Detour, exemplifies the Kramer touch. A woman of strong opinions, she nonetheless keeps the focus on the films and their makers. She's leaving the PFA this year, but she'll always be part of the pantheon of Bay Area screen legends.