Peralta TV can be seen on
Channel 27: Alameda, Berkeley
Channel 28: Emeryville, Piedmont, Oakland
AT&T U-Verse Channel 99
ARCIMBOLDO: PORTRAIT OF AN AUDACIOUS MAN
12/06 (Fri) @ 1pm
12/17 (Tue) @ 6pm
12/30 (Mon) @ 8pm
A film by Benoit Felici
What if Giuseppe Arcimboldo was a painter of Modern Art before its time?
With their unique style, the Composite Heads by the Milanese painter are among the most famous works from the Renaissance period. Largely forgotten after his death in 1593, he was re-discovered by the Surrealists. After them, throughout the 20th century, numerous Modern and Contemporary artists were inspired by his works. His art was in constant metamorphosis, profoundly audacious, sometimes subversive and terrifying. It puzzled his contemporaries and continues to intrigue those who see it.
This film is an unexpected dialogue between Arcimboldo’s audacities and inventions on the one hand and a selection of more contemporary works and artists on the other. It will provide an opportunity to rediscover this enigmatic 16th-century artist and explore his legacy.
NEVER TOO LATE: THE DOC SEVERINSEN STORY
12/09 (Mon) @ 3pm
12/26 (Thur) @ 7pm
12/29 (Sun) @ 9pm
A film by Kevin Bright and Jeff Consiglio
After three decades as the colorful bandleader to The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, master trumpeter Doc Severinsen defies nature with a relentless schedule of touring and performing into his nineties. A musical icon traces his groundbreaking career and personal trials underscoring a life of inspiration and obsession.
In 2018, at the age of 90, Doc Severinsen is still going strong as he leaves home and sets off on a performance tour. At the gym, Doc demonstrates his grueling workout routine while his trainer calls him "a freak of nature". He shares childhood memories of growing up in a small town in Oregon, and also looks back on his early marriages, including struggles with alcoholism, and his determination to find stability for his children. The film follows Doc around the country through joyful live performances as he nostalgically retraces the steps of his career from his big band beginnings to The Tonight Show.
As Doc joins The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, he becomes beloved by millions of American households nightly. Through archival clips and contemporary interviews, we relive thirty years of music, comedy, and friendship of America's favorite talk show.
ALICE STREET
12/12 (Thur) @ 2pm
12/21 (Sat) @ 8:30pm
12/29 (Sun) @ 7:30pm
A film by Spencer Wilkinson
In a rapidly gentrifying city, the construction of a luxury condominium threatens a local mural, forcing the artists and neighborhood to rally to protect its history, voice, and land.
Two artists — Chilean studio painter Pancho Peskador and Chicago-born aerosol artist Desi Mundo — form an unlikely partnership to paint their most ambitious mural to date in downtown Oakland. The four-story mural is situated at a unique intersection of Chinese and Afro-Diasporic communities who face the imminent threat of displacement and gentrification. But even before painting can commence, the artists face numerous obstacles such as complex negotiations with profit-minded property owners, satisfying a community of diverse residents, and resolving the artists' own aesthetic conflicts.
As the mural takes shape, Oakland's unique cultural legacies come to life through historical flashbacks and despite additional setbacks during its creation, Peskador and Mundo complete it with great fanfare and a vibrant celebration.
But three months after the mural's completion, a new luxury condominium development is planned that will obstruct this new source of neighborhood pride. Despite local opposition, the development receives city approval, and the community fights back. Ultimately displaced, the mural becomes a spark for the community to rally to protect cultural arts, and coalesces the community's resistance to gentrification.
CINEPOD – SEASON’S GIFTS
12/14 (Sat) @ 8pm
12/18 (Wed) @ 11am
12/22 (Sun) @ 7:30pm
12/24 (Tue) @ 4:30pm
CINEPOD is Berkeley-based writer and producer Roger Garcia’s unique look at the world of cinema and its inhabitants. In this episode of CINEPOD, host Roger Garcia selects some unusual picks for seasonal gifts to cinephiles. He takes a look at the Hong Kong Film Archive's restored version of the wuxia swordplay film THE VALIANT ONES by renowned filmmaker King Hu. In contrast, he introduces VENOM AND ETERNITY the one film made in 1950 by the Rumanian-born Isidore Isou who founded the avant-garde movement Lettrism in Paris in the 1940s. His film with a haranguing soundtrack about the nature of cinema, and apparent incoherence with long blackout sequences, caused a scandal when it was screened during the Cannes Film Festival in 1951. The film was praised by Jean Cocteau and was released in France before making its US debut at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley in 1953. Isou's film and ideas about cinema are weirdly prescient of explorations by Godard and Apitchatpong even half a century later. For his last pick, Roger chooses the collected transcripts of "classes" given by Jean-Luc Godard in Montreal in the late 1970s. These classes comprised discourse and screening of Godard's features and also extracts from films that helped form his aesthetic. The talks have now been translated into English and published as "Introduction to the True Story of Cinema and Television by Jean-Luc Godard."
BEETHOVEN'S MISSA SOLEMNIS IN THE TEXAS PANHANDLE
12/19 (Thur) @ 2pm
12/25 (Wed) @ 7:30pm
12/31 (Tue) @ 8:30pm
Produced by KACV TV / Panhandle PBS
“Missa Solemnis,” Beethoven's masterpiece, is not often performed in small communities. Art organizations in the Texas Panhandle came together to perform this complex work.
ENGLISH NATIONAL OPERA PRESENTS: LA TRAVIATA
12/20 (Fri) @ 8:30pm
12/23 (Mon) @ 7pm
12/25 (Wed) @ 10am
Filmed live from The London Coliseum, enjoy this superb performance from the English National Opera.
Peter Konwitschny directs this modern-day Verdi, starring Elizabeth Zharoff in the role of Violetta, Ben Johnson as Alfredo and Anthony Michael-Moore as Germont. With a fresh take on this classic tale, this celebrated production cuts to the very heart of the opera’s themes of love and death. Sung in English.