Free documentaries about grassroots resistance, migration and music are coming back to South Berkeley this week as the 17th Annual Fist Up Film Festival takes over La Peña Cultural Center from Thursday through Sunday. Doors open each night at 6:30 p.m. with screenings beginning at 7 p.m., and the four-day run costs nothing to attend, though organizers welcome donations.
The festival, held at La Peña Cultural Center at 3105 Shattuck Avenue, is volunteer-led and 100% POC-run, according to Eventbrite. Admission is free, with suggested donations ranging from $10 to $25 so no one is turned away for lack of funds. As KTVU reports, film, art and grassroots activism are converging once again at the festival this week in Berkeley.
The event was created by filmmaker brothers Eli and Kahlil Jacobs-Fantauzzi, who wanted to build an affordable, non-extractive platform for social justice films after running into steep entry fees at traditional festivals, per an account from NuevaYorkinos. Their production outfit is Fist Up TV. The brothers have also worked on films.
Four Nights, Four Distinct Themes
This year's schedule opens Thursday with the short film night “Culture Keepers,” followed by the feature documentary “Let the City Speak” on Friday, “Mujer Mariposa” on Saturday, and the closing program “Caribbean Resistance” on Sunday. Each night includes screenings followed by Q&As with movement builders and directors, per the festival's own programming.
Friday's feature, “Let the City Speak,” is scheduled for a Q&A with Akira Boch.
Saturday's selection, “Mujer Mariposa,” is Diana Cervera's feature documentary. The film grew out of borderlands media projects supported by the Critical Refugee Studies Collective, according to Diana Cervera's own account of the project.
A Venue With Deep Roots and Recent Strain
La Peña Cultural Center itself carries about 51 years of history in South Berkeley. It was founded in 1975 by activists responding to the 1973 military coup in Chile and remains an active cultural space in North America, according to La Peña Cultural Center. The center was originally established as a hub for exiled South American artists and anti-dictatorship organizing.
That legacy has not shielded the venue from financial pressure. In August 2024, La Peña disclosed a $150,000 operational deficit after exhausting pandemic relief grants, a shortfall that prompted a proposal from Berkeley City Council for a one-time emergency municipal grant, as reported by Berkeleyside. The outlet noted that several long-standing East Bay arts organizations faced similarly severe post-COVID revenue shortfalls around the same time.
La Peña's struggles have echoed elsewhere in Berkeley's arts scene. The City of Berkeley's Civic Arts Commission listed a draft Arts and Culture Sector Resiliency Plan on its August 26, 2026, agenda. Berkeleyside reported that Aurora Theatre requested $350,000 and Freight & Salvage had a deficit of about $1 million.
Set against that backdrop, this week's festival stands as a reminder of what a scrappy, community-funded model can still pull off. Four nights of free screenings, filmmaker Q&As and donation jars at the door won't solve La Peña's budget gap on their own, but they keep an about 51-year-old South Berkeley institution doing exactly what it was built to do.
