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Read the press release here.

Movie Theater With Restaurant, Lounge and Bookshop Opening in LES Next Year

By Lisha Arino | August 24, 2015 4:19pm
 Metrograph will show independent and international movies starting in February 2016, its owner said.
Metrograph will show independent and international movies starting in February 2016, its owner said.
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Metrograph

LOWER EAST SIDE — A two-screen movie house outfitted with a restaurant, bookshop, café and lounge is coming to Ludlow Street early next year, its founders announced Monday afternoon.

Metrograph, which is expected to open in February 2016 at 7 Ludlow St., will screen a mix of first-run independent and international movies as well as repertory films, according to a press release. The arthouse cinema will be able to play both 35 millimeter and digital films, it said.

The larger of the two theaters will have 175 seats and a balcony while the other will seat 50, according to the New York Times, which first reported on the theater. Chairs will be made out of wood salvaged from the old Domino Sugar Factory, the Times wrote.

Alexander Olch, Metrograph's founder, spent the last six years developing and designing the theater, according to the release. Olch is also a film director and menswear accessories designer with a boutique located one block from where the theater is being built.

“Growing up in Manhattan, I fell in love with movies in theaters which are now sadly gone, like The Beekman and The Plaza,” he said in a statement. "To bring glamour, excitement, and prestige back to the exhibition experience has been my longstanding goal.”

Jacob Perlin, currently the programmer-at-large at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, will become the theater’s programming and artistic director.

Aliza Ma, who has worked at the Museum of the Moving Image, the Toronto Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival, will serve as head of programming.

More details will be available in the fall, according to the release.