Cinema 16 was a

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

–based

film society A film society is a membership-based Club (organization), club where people can watch Public and private screening, screenings of films which would otherwise not be shown in mainstream Movie theater, cinemas. In Spain, Ireland and Italy, they are kn ...

founded by

Amos Vogel Amos Vogel ( Vogelbaum; April 18, 1921 – April 24, 2012) was a New York City cineaste and curator. Biography Vogel was born in Vienna, Austria. He fled Austria with his parents after the Nazi '' Anschluß'' in 1938 and at first studied animal h ...

. From 1947 to 1963, he and his wife, Marcia, ran the most successful and influential membership film society in North American history, at its height boasting 7000 members.

History

Vogel was inspired by

Maya Deren Maya Deren (; born Eleonora Derenkovskaya; ; Provincetown Playhouse The Provincetown Playhouse is a historic theatre at 133 MacDougal Street between West 3rd and 4th streets in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is named for the Provincetown Players, who converted the forme ...

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village, or simply the Village, is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street to the north, Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the s ...

for a public exhibition titled ''Three Abandoned Films'', which consisted of showings of '' Meshes of the Afternoon'', '' At Land'', and ''A Study in Choreography for the Camera''. Deren took the word "abandoned" to refer to

Paul Valéry Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry (; 30 October 1871 – 20 July 1945) was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. In addition to his poetry and fiction (drama and dialogues), his interests included aphorisms on art, history, letters, m ...

's observation that a work of art is never completed, just abandoned. While the title was ironic, the exhibition was successful. Cinema 16 closed in 1963, after 17 years in operation. In that year Amos went on to programme the

New York Film Festival The New York Film Festival (NYFF) is a film festival held every fall in New York City, presented by Film at Lincoln Center. Founded in 1963 by Richard Roud and Amos Vogel with the support of Lincoln Center president William Schuman, NYFF i ...

Grove Press Grove Press is an American publishing imprint that was founded in 1947. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, and Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it into an alternative book press in the United S ...

acquired Cinema 16 in 1966.

Programming

The movies shown at Cinema 16 consisted mostly of the

experimental film Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that does not apply standard cinematic conventions, instead adopting Non-narrative film, non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many e ...

that began flourishing after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, as well as nonfiction films – not only documentaries, but educational films as well. In that, it differed even from the narrative-oriented art cinemas that appeared in the postwar years.

Filmmakers exhibited

Jonas Mekas Jonas Mekas (; ; December 24, 1922 – January 23, 2019) was a Lithuanian-American filmmaker, poet, and artist who has been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema". Mekas's work has been exhibited in museums and at festivals world ...

Maya Deren Maya Deren (; born Eleonora Derenkovskaya; ; Gregory Markopoulos Gregory J. Markopoulos (March 12, 1928 – November 12, 1992) was a Greek-American experimental filmmaker. Biography Born in Toledo, Ohio in 1928 to Greek immigrant parents, Markopoulos began making 8 mm films at an early age. He attended USC F ...

* Ron Peterson * Carmen D'Avino (one of his films, the 1963 Oscar-nominated animated short ''Pianissimo'', was distributed by Cinema 16) *

Stan Brakhage James Stanley Brakhage ( ; January 14, 1933 – March 9, 2003) was an American experimental filmmaker. He is considered to be one of the most important figures in 20th-century experimental film. Over the course of five decades, Brakhage cr ...

Shirley Clarke Shirley Clarke (née Brimberg; October 2, 1919 – September 23, 1997) was an American filmmaker. Life Born Shirley Brimberg in New York City, she was the daughter of a Polish-immigrant father who made his fortune in manufacturing. Her mother w ...

Bruce Conner Bruce Conner (November 18, 1933 – July 7, 2008) was an American artist who worked with assemblage, film, drawing, sculpture, painting, collage, and photography. Biography Bruce Conner was born November 18, 1933, in McPherson, Kansas. His w ...

Joseph Cornell Joseph Cornell (December 24, 1903 – December 29, 1972) was an American visual artist and filmmaker, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage. Influenced by the Surrealists, he was also an avant-garde experimental filmma ...

Brian De Palma Brian Russell De Palma (; born September 11, 1940) is an Americans, American film director and screenwriter. With a career spanning over 50 years, he is best known for work in the suspense, Crime film, crime, and psychological thriller genres. ...

Georges Franju Georges Franju (; 12 April 1912 – 5 November 1987) was a French filmmaker. He was born in Fougères, Ille-et-Vilaine. Biography Early life Before working in French cinema, Franju held several different jobs. These included working for an ins ...

Richard Lester Richard Lester Liebman (born January 19, 1932) is an American retired film director, who spent the majority of his professional life in the United Kingdom. He is known for the fast-paced, flamboyant directing he brought to his comedy films, mo ...

Nagisa Oshima is a Japanese name, Japanese given name used by either sex and is occasionally used as a surname. Written forms Nagisa can be written using different kanji characters and can mean: *渚, "beach, strand" *汀, "water's edge/shore" *凪砂, "lu ...

* Yasujiro Ozu *

Roman Polanski Raymond Roman Thierry Polański (; born 18 August 1933) is a Polish and French filmmaker and actor. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Roman Polanski, numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, three Britis ...

Alain Resnais Alain Resnais (; 3 June 19221 March 2014) was a French film director and screenwriter whose career extended over more than six decades. After training as a film editor in the mid-1940s, he went on to direct short films including '' Night and Fog ...

Jacques Rivette Jacques Rivette (; 1 March 1928 – 29 January 2016) was a French film director and film critic most commonly associated with the French New Wave and the film magazine '' Cahiers du Cinéma''. He made twenty-nine films, including '' L'Amour fo ...

Carlos Saura Carlos Saura Atarés (4 January 1932 – 10 February 2023) was a Spanish film director, photographer and writer. With Luis Buñuel and Pedro Almodóvar, he is considered to be among Spain's great filmmakers. He had a long and prolific career th ...

François Truffaut François Roland Truffaut ( , ; ; 6 February 1932 – 21 October 1984) was a French filmmaker, actor, and critic. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of the French New Wave. He came under the tutelage of film critic Andre Bazin as a ...

Agnès Varda Agnès Varda (; born Arlette Varda; 30 May 1928 – 29 March 2019) was a Belgian-born French film director, screenwriter and photographer. Varda's work employed location shooting in an era when the limitations of sound technology made it easier ...

John Cassavetes John Nicholas Cassavetes (December 9, 1929 – February 3, 1989) was an American filmmaker and actor. He began as an actor in film and television before helping to pioneer modern American independent cinema as a writer and director, often self- ...

Amos Vogel, Founder of the New York Film Festival and Cinema 16, Dies at 91, IndieWire
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History

Programming

Filmmakers exhibited

References

Further reading