Castro Street is a visual nonstory documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 which uses the sounds and sights of a city street -- in this case, Castro Street near the Standard Oil

Standard Oil

Standard Oil was a predominant American integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational...

 Refinery in Richmond, California

Richmond, California

Richmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was incorporated on August 7, 1905. It is located in the East Bay, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is a residential inner suburb of San Francisco, as well as the site of heavy industry, which has been...

 -- to convey the street's own mood and feel. There is no dialogue in this non-narrative experimental film

Experimental film

Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties. Experimental cinema has built its history through the texts of theoreticians...

. It was directed by Bruce Baillie

Bruce Baillie

Bruce Baillie is an American experimental filmmaker and founding member of Canyon Cinema in San Francisco...

.

In 1992, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry

National Film Registry

The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...

 by the Library of Congress

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".