Director Charles Burnett?s powerful films - including Killer of Sheep, To Sleep With Anger, and The Glass Shield - changed cinema forever and earned the director an honorary Oscar. The Annihilation of Fish continues his explorations of race, humor, and humanity, but in a different key. The charming, tender comedy/romance centers on Poinsettia (Redgrave), an older woman passionately devoted to her lover?the long-dead composer Giacomo Puccini. When no one in San Francisco will perform a marriage with a noncorporeal groom, she moves into a Victorian Los Angeles boarding house run by Mrs. Muldroone (Kidder). There, Poinsettia encounters a Jamaican widower named Fish (Jones), recently released from a mental institution, whose mission in life is wrestling an invisible demon named Hank. Burnett?s long-lost 1999 feature, unreleased until 2024 and screening at BAM in a new 4K restoration from Milestone Films, is hilarious, heartfelt, and timeless.