Repertory Film Listings

NILES ESSANAY SILENT FILM MUSEUM

Edison Theater, 37395 Niles (near G Street), Fremont, (510) 494-1411 and www.nilesfilmmuseum.org. A weekly "Saturday Night at the Movies" series screens silent films in this historic theater. $5.

SATURDAY (Feb. 4): Charles Emmett Mack stars in the Great War drama The Unknown Soldier (Renaud Hoffman, 1926), with Syd Crossley in the comedy role of Peaceful Perkins. It screens with the short The New Janitor (Charles Chaplin, 1914) and Buster Keaton making The High Sign (Keaton and Eddie Cline, 1920/1921) in an underrated short held back by Keaton for a year after its making 7:30 p.m.

NORTH BEACH RECREATION CENTER

Joe DiMaggio Playground Clubhouse, 651 Lombard (at Mason), 274-0200 for venue, www.noirfilm.com for information on this program. E-mail fjdmp@mindspring.com for reservations. $10 donation to raise funds for the clubhouse.

SATURDAY (Feb. 4): The Danger and Despair Knitting Circle offers a month's worth of S.F.-set noirs at the site where the baseball legend learned to play. Tonight, war refugee Valentina Cortese assumes a false identity for life in a House on Telegraph Hill (Robert Wise, 1951) 7:30 p.m.

OPERA PLAZA

601 Van Ness (at Golden Gate), 352-0810, www.landmarktheatres.com. This multiplex is only partly a "calendar house" rep theater. For the rest of the Opera Plaza's schedule, see our Showtimes page. $8.75.

FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY (Feb. 3-9): Be Here to Love Me (Margaret Brown, 2004). See Opening for review. Call for times.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE

2575 Bancroft (at Bowditch), Berkeley, (510) 642-1124, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $8, second show $2. The East Bay mecca for film scholars, part of UC Berkeley's Art Museum, thrives at its on-campus location, up the steps on Bancroft between Telegraph Avenue and the Hearst Gym.

WEDNESDAY: A UCB film history class open to the public and taught by Russell Merritt screens the early Soviet classic By the Law (1926), adapted from Jack London's tale of three people haunted by murder 3 p.m. In a Nutshell (Don Bernier, 2005) tells us of the elderly curator of a "Nut Museum" who has filled her home with them 7:30 p.m.

THURSDAY: An African Film Festival screening of Al'lèèsi ... an African Actress (Rahmatou Keïta, Niger, 2004), about the life of Africa's first professional actress, Zalika Souley. Free 5:30 p.m. The PFA's Mikio Naruse series of films by this Japanese master continues with Setsuko Hara as a wife dealing with her husband's philandering in Sound of the Mountain (1954) 7:30 p.m.

FRIDAY: African Film Festival -- Sisters in Law (Kim Longinotto and Florence Ayisi, U.K./Cameroon, 2005) follows two women lawyers 7 p.m. The role of German missionaries in Africa's subjugation is traced in The Colonial Misunderstanding (Jean-Marie Teno, Germany/Cameroon, 2004) 9:05 p.m.

SATURDAY: African Film Festival -- A small boy yearns to play soccer in the family-oriented The Golden Ball (Cheick Doukouré, Guinea, 1994) 4 p.m. Two by Naruse -- Three geisha (Kinuyo Tanaka, Isuzu Yamada, Hideko Takamine) try to maintain their way of life in Flowing (1956) 7 p.m. Hideko Takamine tries to recapture a lost love in Floating Clouds (1955), considered the director's masterpiece in Japan 9:15 p.m.

SUNDAY: Two by Naruse -- Setsuko Hara and Shuji Sano struggle with married life in Sudden Rain (1956) 4:30 p.m. Hideko Takamine struggles to open a coffee shop over husband Toshiro Mifune's opposition in A Wife's Heart (1956) 6:20 p.m.

MONDAY: Theater closed.

TUESDAY: The Women's Film Preservation Fund screens two "cine-poems" by Storm de Hirsh, The Reticule of Love (mid-1960s) and Aristotle (circa 1970), and Maya Deren's documentary on voodoo, Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti (1947-51) 7:30 p.m.

PARKWAY

1834 Park (at Lake Merritt), Oakland, (510) 814-2400, www.picturepubpizza.com. $5 save as noted. Pizza, beer, and movies on two screens. Call theater for programs, booked a week in advance. The Parkway also offers occasional scheduled special programs.

TUESDAY (Feb. 7): Prince's Purple Rain (Albert Magnoli, 1984) screens as a benefit for the grass-roots employment rights group POWER. $7 9:15 p.m.

MIDNIGHT SHOW (Saturday): The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975), with live performance by Barely Legal. $6.

RAFAEL FILM CENTER

1118 Fourth St. (at A Street), San Rafael, 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $9 save as noted. This three-screen repertory theater, now officially the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center, is operated by the California Film Institute. Programs are complex; check carefully and call for confirmation.

WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: Duma (Carroll Ballard, 2005) 6:30, 8:45 p.m. The Real Dirt on Farmer John (Taggart Siegel, 2005) 6:45, 9 p.m. Winter Soldier (Winterfilm Collective, 1972) 7 p.m. The Squid and the Whale (Noah Baumbach, 2005) Wed 9:30 p.m.; Thurs 9:15 p.m.

STARTS FRIDAY: The World's Fastest Indian (Roger Donaldson, New Zealand). See Opening for review. Call for other films and times.

RED VIC

1727 Haight (at Cole), 668-3994, www.redvicmoviehouse.com. $7 save as noted. There's a spot on the couch for you at this collectively owned rep house.

WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: Claire Danes is Steve Martin's Shopgirl (Anand Tucker, 2005), from his novel 7:15, 9:30 p.m.; also Wed 2 p.m.

STARTS FRIDAY: An American Indian activist's true tale is Trudell (Heather Rae, 2004), screening through Feb. 11. See Opening for review 7:15, 9:15 p.m.; also Sat & Sun 2, 4 p.m.; Wed 2 p.m.

ROXIE FILM CENTER

3117 and 3125 16th St. (at Valencia), 863-1087, www.roxie.com; 820-3907 and www.sfindie.com for the S.F. Independent Film Festival. $8 for regular programs, $10 with $8 matinees (before 4 p.m.) for S.F. IndieFest. Short-run repertory on two screens, separated by a bar, in this newly reconstituted affiliate of New College.