In the past, Columbia students had to venture downtown to the IFC Center or Film Forum to see independent films and documentaries. But the opening of the small, non-profit Maysles Cinema on 128th Street in January 2008 brought underground flicks up north to Harlem.
The theater—owned and operated by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles and his son Philip Maysles—is part of the Maysles Institute, whose goals are to showcase emerging documentarians and educate youth about filmmaking. The cinema screens Caribbean films every Sunday, and much of its programming focuses on urban, African-American New York. Officials say the theater is committed not only to promoting Harlem filmmakers, but to showing movies that reflect the history and culture of the area.
“It’s a two-way street,” curator Jessica Green said. “It’s as much about the kind of impact this cinema could have on the community as the community could have on this cinema.”
Maurio Mizoni, a West Harlem resident who attended a screening of The Police Tapes on Saturday, expressed ambivalent feelings about the arrival of an art-house theater in Central Harlem.
“It’s terrific to see anyone anywhere putting this type of venue up and getting independent films out there,” Mizoni said. “At the same time, it probably plays some part in the gentrification of the neighborhood.”
But despite the possible perception of the Cinema as a gentrifying force, Philip Maysles described the theater’s role as more nuanced.
“On the one hand, we show films that raise awareness ... of gentrification and displacement of people all over New York,” Maysles said, referring to the Cinema’s current film series, titled “Rent Control”. “On the other hand, we are a theater, and in order to fill our seats we appeal to people downtown and people all over the city to come see these movies.”
Geoff Agnor, a Brooklyn resident, agreed that there is a diversity of films, saying that the Maysles Cinema shows documentaries he couldn’t see anywhere else.
“They have neighborhood documentaries about Brooklyn and the Bronx,” Agnor said. “It’s also nice to come to Harlem, walk through 125th Street and see the area.”
Over the past year, the Maysles Cinema has forged relationships with the National Black Programming Consortium and the Black Documentary Collective, which offer financial assistance and networking opportunities to black filmmakers. In addition, the Harlem-based group Doc Watchers screens films at Maysles on the first Monday of every month.
“We’re coming from outside of it but also trying to be a part of that community and history by creating events in partnership with groups and individuals who may have a stronger footing in the Harlem creative community,” Green said. “Hopefully by doing that, this institution is primed to be a part of the growth and development of Harlem as opposed to blanket, market-driven, profits-over-people gentrification.”
With a maximum seating capacity of 60, the theater is much smaller, with a more intimate ambience, than the typical multiplex. The seats are not the classic movie theater fare, but rather simple chairs with brightly colored cushions.
The theater’s latest film series is titled “Tibet In Harlem,” and was organized in conjunction with Columbia. The University’s Modern Tibetan Studies program, part of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, is cosponsoring the series, and Robert Barnett, an associate research scholar at the Weatherhead Institute, served as co-curator.
Running from March 1 to 7, the series will feature films, panel discussions, and receptions about Tibet.
