HAMILTON HEIGHTS — Kung Fu movie marathons, slasher films and discounted access to Hollywood blockbusters could be coming to the big screen uptown.
Filmmaker Mark Blackman, 30, and PhD student Eleanor Luken, 28, who both live in Hamilton Heights, are working on a plan to open the The Harlem Independent Theater, or the HIT, in a yet-to-be determined space they hope will support local filmmakers and lets the community decide what goes on the screen.
“We want to make it easier for filmmakers to showcase their work,” said Blackman, who spent three years making "Welcome to Harlem," a musical comedy about artists shot in Hamilton Heights that features a cast full of people who live in the area.
Although his movie got into multiple film festivals, it was difficult and expensive to find a theater in the city that would screen it, Blackman said.
“There just aren’t a lot of spaces and we wanted to help out with that," he said.
"There’s such a need for this kind of thing in this neighborhood,” added Luken, a PhD candidate at CUNY's Graduate Center.
The venue — which the pair hope to launch next summer — would help fill the moviehouse void in Hamilton Heights, where the only theater for the neighborhood's estimated 50,000 residents is currently the Magic Johnson Theater on 125th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard.
The pair are currently in negotiations with three venues in the area in hopes of opening a 10,000 square foot space with a 150-seat theater and two smaller theaters with 100 seats between them.
They plan to offer a cafe and bar that sell popcorn, soda, beer, wine, empanadas and sandwiches. There will be event spaces that can be used to throw private parties, small concerts or comedy acts, she added.
Apart from showing indie flicks, they will show family movies, cult classics, Spanish-language films and Hollywood blockbusters — which they'll screen about a month after their release date to keep the prices low, Luken said.
The different revenue sources would allow them to make screening independent films a priority, Luken said.
The pair are currently in the middle of a month-long fundraising campaign to raise $30,350 in order to secure a business loan. So far, they’ve raised $15,720.
They also won $7,500 from a start-up competition sponsored by the New York Public Library.
They want the community to dictate what’s on the screen so they have been doing a lot of outreach to get a sense of what the people want to see.
“A woman told me that if we do a matinee John Wayne series she will be there three hours every day,” Luken said. “People are also really into Kung Fu.”
As part of their fundraising efforts, they have scheduled various events that are indicative of the type of programing they’d like to have.
Next Wednesday they will screen a web series made by local filmmakers at the Chipped Cup and on Friday Nov. 14 they will host a movie trivia night at Lenox Coffee.
Filmmaker KarynRose Breyning, 32, of Washington Heights, whose work will be included in the upcoming screening, said If she currently wants to show her work in New York, she has to do it downtown or in Brooklyn, she said.
But she said a moviehouse like the HIT would be key for the filmmakers, actors and artists who live uptown to screen their work in front of their own community.
“Part of this belongs to you,” she said. “You are being responsible for what comes into the community.”
