Filmmaker Screening: “Tenderloin Blues” (1987) + “Moving In” (1982)

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Two artist-made documentaries, Chuck Hudina’s “Tenderloin Blues” and Jeffrey Skoller’s “Moving In,” explore the Tenderloin of the 1980s while raising ever-important questions of representation. Join us for a screening followed by a panel discussion with filmmakers Hudina & Skoller, moderated by Craig Baldwin. 

Chuck Hudina’s soulful 1987 documentary “Tenderloin Blues” looks at San Francisco’s Tenderloin during a transformative moment by lyrically assembled video portraits of the neighborhood, its denizens, and their multitudes. The film’s street-level, vérité aesthetic “breathes life and lets these people from the streets express themselves fully.” Their stories weave into a moving and nuanced historical snapshot of the Tenderloin and how the neighborhood was perceived and experienced by its residents;

Titled after an original song by Burkie Du Bois–career entertainer, longtime Cadillac Hotel resident, and child of W.E.B. Du Bois–the film bears witness to the TL’s intractable “blues,” yet it also notices historic changes under way: shifting demographics enlivened by an influx of immigrant families with kids, contentious policies from City Hall affecting the TL’s character, and a newly emergent community consciousness in the neighborhood.

“Tenderloin Blues” is screened alongside filmmaker and writer Jeffrey Skoller’s early work “Moving In,” presented in its original 16mm format. Set in the TL-adjacent SOMA neighborhood in 1982, the short “begins as a documentary on the growing problem of homelessness in San Francisco in the wake of Reagan-era budget cuts and ends as a meditation on the filmmaker’s own relationship to the situation.”

Both films serve as powerful records of a place in its time, communicate life on the margins of the system, and invoke important reflection about representation and belonging in one of our city’s most liminal spaces.

Join us for a special screening of these rare films–followed by a panel discussion that features both filmmakers in-person and moderated by Craig Baldwin! Screening starts promptly at 6:30pm. Admission is free or by suggested donation ($10); register via Eventbrite. 

Special thanks to Craig Baldwin / Other Cinema for facilitating 16mm projection at the Tenderloin Museum, an institutional first!

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.