Now Available: New Preservation Prints and 2K Digitizations of Michael Wallin’s Black Sheep Boy and Decodings

Posted July 9th, 2026 in Announcements, New Acquisitions, New Digital Files, New Films, News / Events

Canyon Cinema is thrilled to announce that the initial phase of our multi-faceted Michael Wallin restoration project is now complete. Thanks to the support of a National Film Preservation Foundation – Avant-Garde Masters Grant, new 16mm preservation prints and 2K digitizations of Wallin’s landmark autobiographical essays Decodings (1988) and Black Sheep Boy (1995) are now available from Canyon Cinema. The new restorations premiered at SFMOMA on June 7, 2026 in the program Michael Wallin, Outside In.

In addition, with assistance from California Revealed, we have also finished cataloging, rehousing, and digitizing our collection of Michael Wallin papers. Selections from the collection, including archival materials, photographs, interviews, and writing, can now be found on our Canyon Cinema Connects micro-site.

Decodings (1988, 15 minutes, black and white, sound, 16mm or digital file)

“Michael Wallin’s Decodings is a profoundly moving, allegorical search for identity from the documents of collective memory; in this case, found footage from the forties and fifties… The search for self ends in aching poignancy with stills of a boy and his mother at the kitchen table, catching the moment that marks the dawning of anguish and loss; desire becomes imprinted on that which was long ago.” (Manohla Dargis, The Village Voice)

Black Sheep Boy (1995, 37 minutes, color, sound, 16mm or digital file)

“A rumination of desire, the construction of sexual fantasy, obsession, the yearning for connection, the allure of the younger man, the pursuit of the idealized other, its rewards and pitfalls. Erotic, playful, perhaps disturbing; many questions are raised, few are answered.” (Michael Wallin)