08/28/2026
SKIN OF GLASS is closing the MADE IN BERKELEY film series, celebrating the exception films made at the Fantasy building in Berkeley across four decades. Join us on Sunday for this special screening with director Denise Zmekhol live in-person.
Denise Zmekhol’s 2023 Skin of Glass is an exploration of her overlapping history with a São Paulo skyscraper. When she learns that squatters occupy the landmark tower her late father designed in the early 1960s, the documentarian returns to her hometown to investigate. The Edifício Wilton Paes de Almeida, nicknamed the “Pele de Vidro” (Skin of Glass) for its windowed facade, was the first building of its kind in South America, a shiny symbol of Brazil’s promising future. Zmekhol recalls an idyllic childhood that gave way to estrangement from the man whose structure would become a dilapidated eyesore, weaving together family photographs, archival material, testimonials from friends and colleagues, and drone footage of the decaying high-rise.
Following the film, Denise Zmekhol will be in conversation with James Holston, a Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Co-Director of the Social Apps Laboratory at UC Berkeley.
MADE IN BERKELEY: THE HOUSE THAT ZAENTZ BUILT
Home to the jazz and rock label Fantasy Records, headed by Saul Zaentz, Berkeley’s Fantasy Studios building was also, from the early 1970s, a storied site of filmmaking. Zaentz produced a number of critically acclaimed and award-winning literary adaptations, including a trio of Academy Award Best Picture winners: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus, and The English Patient. Along with Zaentz’s lauded fiction films, the studios serve as a vital resource for documentary filmmakers in the Bay Area and beyond. Copresented with the Berkeley Film Foundation.
