From: Adam Hyman (email suppressed)
Date: Thu May 28 2009 - 10:12:26 PDT
Well, the article says five years. So I assume for now it will last five
years.
On 5/28/09 9:52 AM, "40 Frames" <email suppressed> wrote:
> Amidst all the doom and gloom, this is truly wonderful news. I am however
> curious about how long this arrangement will last? Does anyone know if FMC
> signed a long-term lease?
>
>
> --Alain
>
>
>
> On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 9:38 AM, Adam Hyman <email suppressed> wrote:
>> Today's NY Times:
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/movies/28film.html?_r=2
>>
>> Avant-Garde Film Group Gets New Home, Cheap
>>
>> The Film-MakersÄ… CooperativeÄ…s new home will include space designed to
>> protect its archives.
>>
>> By LARRY ROHTER
>> Published: May 27, 2009
>>
>> After months of uncertainty, the Film-MakersÄ… Cooperative, whose future was
>> threatened early this year when it received an order of eviction from a
>> city-owned building in TriBeCa, has found a new home, and on terms that are
>> likely to make it the envy of other arts organizations and tenants across
>> the city.
>>
>> The group, which archives, distributes and restores experimental and
>> avant-garde movies, has signed a five-year lease with the real estate
>> developer Charles S. Cohen that calls for the organization to pay a symbolic
>> rent of $1 a year.
>>
>> Å‚ItÄ…s amazing,Ë› said Jonas Mekas, a filmmaker and one of the cooperativeÄ…s
>> founders, Å‚and amazing that there are still people like Cohen in this
>> world.Ë›
>>
>> The new quarters, which the group hopes to occupy by Labor Day, are at 475
>> Park Avenue South, on the northeast corner of 32nd Street. The sixth-floor
>> site will offer nearly four times as much space as the co-opÄ…s current
>> location at the Clocktower Building, where it is paying about $1 a square
>> foot for approximately 900 square feet.
>>
>> Å‚ItÄ…s a beautiful and more accessible space,Ë› said M. M. Serra, the film
>> groupÄ…s executive director. Å‚WeÄ…ll have offices and archives, and our films,
>> some of which are one of a kind, will be in air-conditioning specifically
>> designed to protect them, which we donÄ…t have where we are now.Ë›
>>
>> As part of the move, a 15-seat theater is also being built at the 32nd
>> Street location, Å‚for the use of scholars and others who want to do
>> researchË› into the approximately 5,000 films that the cooperative has in its
>> archives, in formats ranging from 8 millimeter to video, Mr. Mekas said.
>> Tentatively, it is to be named the Charles Theater, a double homage, to Mr.
>> Cohen and to the old Charles Theater in the East Village, one of the first
>> places in New York to show experimental films.
>>
>> Mr. Cohen, the president and chief executive of Cohen Brothers Realty, is
>> known as a film aficionado. He is the author of a book of movie trivia, won
>> a Kodak Movie Award for a comedy short he wrote and directed, and was an
>> executive producer of Å‚Frozen River,Ë› the feature-length film starring
>> Melissa Leo that was released last year and earned two Oscar nominations.
>>
>> Å‚I was in a position to help, and I thought that I should,Ë› Mr. Cohen said.
>> Å‚They are a wonderful group doing important work, and there is no other
>> place to go and see this kind of thing. They needed a storage space for
>> their archives, and this meets their needs.Ë›
>>
>> Founded in 1962, the Film-MakersÄ… Cooperative has since the start of the
>> decade occupied space controlled by the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center,
>> another bulwark of the cityÄ…s avant-garde artistic establishment. But late
>> last year, P.S. 1 decided to give up the site and turn it over to Alanna
>> Heiss, its founder and former executive director, so that she could use the
>> location as a base for her latest project, an Internet radio station called
>> Art International Radio.
>>
>> Before that, the Film-MakersÄ… Cooperative operated for many years out of an
>> office on Lexington Avenue at 31st Street, which it had to leave in 2000
>> because of redevelopment there. So returning to the same neighborhood on
>> such favorable terms Å‚in a way brings things full circle,Ë› Mr. Mekas said.
>>
>>
>> __________________________________________________________________
>> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
>
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.