American experimental filmmaker Bruce Baillie (1931-2020), along with friend and fellow cinematic artist Chick Strand, among others, founded San Francisco Cinematheque in 1961. His importance in creating spaces and systems of support and distribution for avant-garde filmmakers was enormous, as was his own work. His lyrical and keenly observational work evades genre and explores narratives in nontraditional forms—from short films to longer explorations. Castro Street (1966) was selected for preservation in 1992 by the United States National Film Registry.
