Among the founders of Bay Area experimental cinema, Will Hindle (1930-1987) created films of rare lucidity, mystery and emotion, yet today he is often overlooked. Hindle’s elemental weave of lyricism, documentary and narrative, combined with a primal command of sound/image, delivers and demands an overwhelming empathy for his subjects–both on screen and before it. Tonight’s program will focus on five of Hindle’s ten films: Chinese Firedrill (1968), an epic prophesy of cosmic upheavel from the inside-out; Watersmith (1969), a densely layered study of the human form amidst the waters of an Olympic training pool; St. Flournoy Lobos-Logos and the Eastern Europe Fetus Taxing Japan Brides in West Coast Places Sucking Alabama Air (1970); FFFTCM (1967); and his first film, Pastorale D’Ete (1958). (T.W.)