A new movie Art House is always a cause for a celebration, but when it opens with such lofty plans as The Metrograph, then it’s sort of like a wet-dream for real hardcore cinephiles.
The two screen theater opened in March this year in Ludlow Street on New York’s Lower East Side and also encompasses a bar, a restaurant and a bookstore. Founded by it’s chief creative director the menswear designer Alexander Olch (he has a clothing store close by), and with ex BAM programmer Jacob Perlin as the artistic and programming director, the theater has embarked on an impressive and innovative curated schedule to date.
With an emphasis on projects that use archive quality 35mm and state of the art digital video, all with an aim at attracting diverse communities all drawn to the excitement of cinema and the magic of having a place to celebrate it. Next week however sees the start of one of their most exciting programs to date : it’s called ‘QUEER ’90’s : A Snapshot of the Watershed Decade’. Based on the emergence of ‘New Queer Cinema,‘ as the LGBT community dealt with the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic and some of the right-wing backlash at the time, the focus is on the whole range of exciting new filmmakers who emerged to become the standard bearers of that generation.
The program includes over 30 essential works that range from the sublimely heartwarming The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, to Derek Jarman’s very profound experimental Blue, Kimberly Pierce’s Oscar winning Boys Don’t Cry, and somewhere in the middle of all that is Pedro Almodóvar’s intensely moving All About My Mother.
This retrospective is not the definitive record of 90’s queer filmmaker, but it is without doubt, one of the most exciting and comprehensive selections of the era that has ever been mounted.
QUEER ’90’s runs from Oct0ber 5th – 30th @ The Metrograph. 7 Ludlow Street, New Tork
Full details of all the films and the special appearances http://metrograph.com
