Film Forum, NYC

If you are a cinema buff, you must have got that feeling occasionally to catch up with classics and revisit some memorable moments. Now, the problem with that may be that the movie you want to watch may not be aired on popular movie channels or available on DVDs. What do you then? Kill your desire or make do with some other movie? Well, if you are in New York, you may have to do neither. Just put in a bit of effort and make your way to the Film Forum at 209 west Houston St. (between Avenues of The Americas & Bedford St).

The Film Forum is the place where you find a gathering of fellow cine-philes like yourself who aren’t satisfied with regular commercial movie houses. And what makes Film Forum so different? To begin with, they don’t show you the latest hit, neither are they interested solely in commercial successes or blockbusters. They present two distinct, complementary film programs – NYC theatrical premieres of American independents and foreign art films; and repertory selections including foreign and American classics, genre works, festivals and directors’ retrospectives.

It’s an autonomous, nonprofit movie theater, probably the only one in New York City, and one of the very few in the country. What began in 1970 as an alternative screening space for independent films, with only one projector, 50 folding chairs, a huge coffee pot, and an annual budget of less than US$20,000 has turned into a 3-screen cinema open all round the year, with 280,000 annual admissions, 4500 members, about 500 seats, and an operating budget of US$4.4 today.

Film Forum was founded by Sandy Miller and Peter Feinstein who rented a small loft on the West 88th Street with the mission of showing movies that were considered “underground” at that time. From there the Film Forum moved downtown to the Vandam Theater, and then to the 2-screen cinema on Watts Street, before coming to rest at its current location on West Houston Street. Now, that’s what you call exponential growth!

So, when you are in the mood to watch retrospectives, classic films, reissues, independent films, foreign films, and the movies that you remember watching on TV when you were a kid, this is the place to head. It has an impressive range of foreign films and other classics that are really hard to come across in your average movie rental store or DVD shop. They even organize amazing retrospective series, like the Kurosawa festival this year, and if you are interested in getting information on their upcoming events, subscribe to their mailing list.

At Film Forum, movie watching is taken to a whole new level. Get ready to get addicted!

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