SubRosa Community Space

Hooray for Santa Cruz Guerilla Drive-In

All are invited to the first screening of the 2026 Santa Cruz Guerilla Drive-In 2026 season! Back after an extended hiatus! Friday June 26th at dusk. PHOTO: here is some of the GDI collective testing our equipment and having a peek of 2 films - in image is “Linda Linda Linda” which perhaps we’ll show another time but for our upcoming showing come for the other film we watched a bit of…

“We Are the Best” - Three teenage girls in 1980s Stockholm form a punk band despite having no instruments or musical talent. The movie follows the misfits Bobo, Klara, and the more reserved Hedvig as they navigate adolescence and punk culture, creating music as an outlet for their energy and anger, even when told punk is dead. The film captures the spirit of youthful rebellion and friendship.

URBAN WASTELAND LOCATION: From downtown, head south on Soquel Avenue. At Riverside, by the Royal Taj, turn right. Follow the path down to the sandy area under the bridge.

PLUS thrilling short films, an intermission, great company and a guaranteed good time!

BRING blankets, pillows, anything you need to be comfortable in foldy metal chairs indoors, friends, snacks to share. Donations to support the project are more than welcome.

SANTA CRUZ GUERILLA DRIVE-IN is an outdoor movie theatre under the stars that springs up in the fields and industrial wastelands. Beyond showing great movies and bringing a broad community together, part of our mission is helping reclaim public space and transforming our urban environment. Find out more at guerilladrivein.org

Indexical

Santa Cruz Guerilla Drive-In

We're testing out our new equipment. Back in the day, we had hundreds of meters of extension cords, big speakers with speaker cables, and a giant box with an amplifier connected to both DVD and VHS. We are excited to be moving into the digital age.

From GDI’s IG page - https://www.instagram.com/sc_gdi

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SANTA CRUZ GUERILLA DRIVE-IN is an outdoor movie theater under the stars that springs up unexpectedly in the fields and industrial wastelands. Beyond showing great free movies and bringing a broad community together, part of our mission is reclaiming public space and transforming our urban environment. More information at our website https://www.guerilladrivein.org/

Hard Core Compost

AK Press and Support Marius Mason

Anarchist trans prisoner Marius Mason is finally being released after seventeen of a twenty-two year sentence!

Marius is an anarchist, environmental and animal rights activist as well as a loving parent, artist, poet, and musician who was given a brutal sentence for acts of property destruction. No one was hurt, no individual targeted, and yet he was given a “terrorism enhancement." His arrest was based on snitching (including his then spouse) and FBI harassment of activists. Marius was shuffled around between prisons, isolating him from family and outside friends, but he is resilient, and despite all the challenges being incarcerated creates he has fought tirelessly for trans prisoner rights.

Marius was actually one of the first people to be signed up for the Friends of AK prisoner support membership, and has over the years written reviews of AK Press books and been in friendly communication with collective members. We want to celebrate his release and help him land on his feet, so through May we will give Marius $2 for every item sold (books, sweatshirts, you name it). We hope this will add up to a tidy sum, and we encourage you to get a book: https://www.akpress.org

You can also skip the AK Press-middle man and help him directly through his support committee: https://supportmariusmason.org/support/

Support political prisoners!

Free Skool Santa Cruz

2026 Free Skool Santa Cruz Spring/Summer session A radically different approach to living and learning, Free Skool Santa Cruz is a grassroots educational project beyond institutional control. It is an opportunity to learn from each other and shar…

Santa Cruz Guerilla Drive-In

A BLAST FROM THE PAST (as we look towards the future!)
Santa Cruz Guerilla Drive-In at City Hall Protest (Photo: B. Elderberry)

https://santacruzlife.com/santa-cruz-guerilla-drive-in/ (article from years ago) - There are no formal drive-in movie theatres left in Santa Cruz County, but a few times a year you can follow a set of buried-treasure type directions to find the Guerilla Drive-In, an anarchist outdoor moving movie theater whose legality is hazy but whose awesomeness is not.

Guerilla Drive-In, which started in 2002, claims, “Beyond showing great free movies year-round and bringing a broad community together, part of our mission is reclaiming public space and transforming our urban environment.”

Bringing together two passions innate to Santa Cruz — DIY (Do It Yourself) culture and great cinema — Guerilla Drive-In screens free films at different locations around town. The first guerilla theater in the country, it often does not secure rights or permits to show these films. This is part of their mission to reclaim public space — they don’t believe permits should be needed to simply enjoy a movie outdoors with some friends. As a result, police officers have sometimes broken up the peaceful viewings, on the grounds of trespassing.

The movement has since spread to places like Hollywood, Berkeley, and even New York.

Though some of the art films shown at Guerilla Drive-In are family-friendly, getting to the various secret locations is not for the faint of heart — recent instructions for finding the film Brazil included phrases like “Go to the back of the building. Follow the Giant Dragons,” and “Use of bikes and Hwy 1 footbridge connector is encouraged. At the bottom of the big bike hill, make a right.”

But what makes the Guerilla Drive-In most special isn’t the hunt to find it, or the rocky legal history, or even the fact that it started in Santa Cruz and turned into a national underground movement. It’s the sense of community it creates, and the leeway allowed in DIY culture that isn’t present in for-profit movie theatres. Although it only happens a few times a year, it’s worth following the Drive-In to see when the next warehouse or parking lot will turn into the weirdest theatre you’ve ever seen. -Blair Stenvick

And did you know that GDI has an instagram page? If you use this particular social media give it a look (this post was originally there). https://www.instagram.com/sc_gdi

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SANTA CRUZ GUERILLA DRIVE-IN is an outdoor movie theater under the stars that springs up unexpectedly in the fields and industrial wastelands. Beyond showing great free movies and bringing a broad community together, part of our mission is reclaiming public space and transforming our urban environment.

Little Giant Collective and The Fábrica

PENNANT + FLAG MAKING FOR MAY DAY ✊🏽

Join Little Giant Collective + The Fábrica for a day of print + flag making in celebration of May Day — a day rooted in worker solidarity, collective power, and the ongoing fight for economic and social justice.

We’ll have fabric, pre-burned screens, and materials ready for you to create your own flags and pennants for marches, gatherings, and future actions. Come make something that speaks to what you stand for — whether it’s labor rights, housing, environmental justice, or community care.

This is about showing up, making together, and building visual language for the movements we’re part of.

🗓 May 2
🕚 11–2pm
📍 115 River St, Santa Cruz

All skill levels welcome.
Donation-based / free.