STROKE - Film #5 in director Rob Nilsson’s 9 @ Night film cycle.

Thursday February 12 , 2026 | 6:30 - 8:30pm

at the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102

Tickets: $10 GA / $6 TLM members | Register via Humanitix

$50 / $35 (TLM members) full series tickets available at this link.

Phil Berkowitz, a 60 year old North Beach poet, survivor of the days of wine and roses, has a stroke. Helpless, he lies in his flea bag Tenderloin hotel room and is found by Johnny, part-time janitor in a seedy strip club run by St. Tre and Malafide, now operating under the name Modisco. Johnny tries to help him regain his speech and plays Cupid, Introducing him to Svetlana, a waitress, and alcoholic. Svetlana feels sorry for Phil, but Phil mistakes kindness for attraction.

9 interconnected feature films, spun from the world of the Tenderloin and featuring TL denizens inhabiting their characters and improvising the scripts, are framed by the poetic vision and prolific practice of iconoclast director Rob Nilsson. His ambitious 9 @ Night cycle achieves an deep exploration of the human condition and stands as a rich chronicle of the Tenderloin–the physical place, its people, their existential struggles, sorrows and joys.

Independently produced, the series is an epic feat of cinema in terms of both craft & concept. 9 @ Night is the fruit of Nilsson’s nearly 2-decade collaboration with the Tenderloin yGroup, an acting workshop embedded in the neighborhood and operating with Nilsson’s creative method of “Direct Action,” which he describes as “a cinema of the moment which lives off the land to discover the relationship between what we think we want and what is actually there.” The films and the process that created them (as well as their life after completion) are a tremendous synthesis of art-making, community, and the culture of the Tenderloin both real and imagined.

The Tenderloin Museum is proud to present the 9 @ Night series in its entirety, screened salon-style with Nilsson (and guests) in-person, offering a rare opportunity to see the complete film cycle in “the land” where it was forged. For lovers of San Francisco on-screen, gritty filmic realism, character driven dramas, consider 9 @ Night an essential opus in the canon of Tenderloin-alia! 

STROKE is the fifth film in the 9 @ Night cycle. While completists will be rewarded with narrative and visual resonance across the films, each movie can be enjoyed independently. Read more about the series here, and visit RobNilssonArtForms.com to explore the filmmakers full oeuvre.

About STROKE / 9 @ Night:

• Winner: San Francisco Film Critic's Circle Marlon Riggs Award for courage and innovation in the cinema, 2008.

• Praise from Ray Carney and the Academy Foundation:

https://harvardfilmarchive.org/programs/9-night-the-films-of-rob-nilsson-2/

• World Premiere: Mill Valley International Film Festival, 2000

• Annual Stella Artois St. Louis International Film Festival, 2010

• The World Premiere marathon screening of all the 9 @ Night Films took place at the Harvard Film Archive in 2007.

"Beginning with the film Stroke, Nilsson and his collective have enjoyed a fruitful 18-year collaboration, producing a string of remarkable films, including what he calls the 9@Night Films.

With his directorial admonition to "be triumphantly yourself," Nilsson has shown a knack for drawing profoundly natural and unstudied performances from his actors, most of whom have never acted before. Nilsson's movies are not made so much as they are gathered, culled from the angry, shadowy, steaming streets of the city."Nilsson: "Honestly. I find what I want through the process of making the film. Or more truthfully, I use the process of filmmaking to pull out of me what it is I didn't know I wanted to express." - David Templeton, The Outsider, 10/04/2006

Directed by:

• Rob Nilsson

Story by:

• Rob Nilsson

Improvised by the Cast:

• Edwin Johnson – Johnny

• Teddy Weiler – Phil

• Omewenne – Svetlana

• Robert Viharo – Modisco

• Mira Larkin – Francesca

• Ron Perlman – Schumacher

• Peter Richards – Rosario

• Paige Olson – St. Tre

• Bruce Marovich – Qually

• Cory DuVal – Bid Qualquiver

• Marianne Heath – Jane / Ginger

• Bridget Burch – Johnny’s Wife

• Eddy Falconer – Joey

• John Hunsaker – Chuckles

• Brette McCabe – Lou

• David Miles – Robot Man

• Jim Pusch – Jim

• Jason Santucci – Punk

• David Jay Selksy – Photographer

• Jim Trinh – Cafe Owner

Cinematography:

• Mickey Freeman

Production Design:

• Jennifer Burns

Set Decoration:

• Adan J. Faudoa

Production Manager:

• Mira Larkin

Editor:

• Allan Kelley

Post-Production Engineer:

• Robert Frey

Sound Editor:

• Al Nelson

• Josh Peterson

Sound Designer:

• Al Nelson

Music:

• Al Nelson

Producers:

• Rob Nilsson

• Kevin Michael Winterfield

Executive Producers:

• Carol Richards

• David Richards

Okunrin Meta - David Schickele