Familiar Touch: The Aesthetics of Aging

We are thrilled to welcome American filmmaker Sarah Friedland to the UCSF Memory and Aging Center for a screening of her feature film Familiar Touch. Awarded the Luigi de Laurentiis Lion of the Future for best first film and Best Director award at the Venice International Film Festival (2024), this film intimately follows an octagenarian woman's transition into assisted living and the shifts in identity, memory, and physicality that follow.

Cinematic Empathy: The Art of Socially Conscious Film

The UCSF Memory and Aging Center is excited to announce filmmaker and Atlantic Fellow Zach Bandler as the inaugural recipient of the Miller Artist in Residence Program. This prestigious residency honors Harriet Bernice Sanders Miller, MFA—an artist fascinated with botany, cell biology, and medical illustration—and her husband Milton Miller, MD, professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences.

Why Cultural Spaces Can Make a Difference to Your Brain Health

Museums and galleries are special places where individuals and communities can come together for connection, wellbeing, and sense making. There is growing evidence that visiting cultural spaces can lower anxiety levels, lift depression and loneliness and potentially slow cognitive decline and decrease the risk of developing dementia.