On Friday, April 23, the seven students in Associate Professor and Chair of Film Erica Stein’s film intensive, FILM 222: “Curating Microcinema,” turned the historic Poughkeepsie Underwear Factory, located just off of Main Street, into an avant-garde microcinema. Eight short films by independent filmmakers shot on 16mm film cameras were shown at this collaborative event between the Poughkeepsie community and Vassar’s Film Department. Students were assigned to a role and led the budgeting, outreach, site planning, film distribution and technical needs of the event. By 7 p.m., the small restaurant space on the lower level of the Underwear Factory was packed with students, professors and community members filling in the bar stools, chairs and bean bags that lined the aisle.
While taking FILM 221: “American Avant-Garde Film,” students can opt into this additional intensive which meets for two weeks at the start of the semester and then again in the last four. When paired with the intensive, this class works to expose students to the past and present of avant-garde film, then hoping to have them imagine its future. According to the Vassar Course Catalogue, the course explores what this genre reveals about the American identity, how it provides an alternative to dominant commercial film and why using the 16mm film technology medium is important to avant-garde film. Therefore, while Poughkeepsie does not have its own microcinema, students in FILM 222 created an intimate, temporary space for these films to thrive. The intensive runs on in-class workshops, independent research, group work, meetings with Stein and even sessions with faculty in related departments.
The first step students take in planning the event is managing the budget. Budget Coordinator Abbie Zhang ’29 stated that the class was given $2,000 by the Film Department to organize this event. This covered renting physical film reels—an essential step in using 16mm film—as well as digital films from distributors, refreshments and black curtains to block out daylight during the screening. Site arranging was one of the next steps in the planning process. Site Planner Trevor Picanco ’28 decided, along with other class members, that they would also house their project in the Underwear Factory to keep with the tradition that past intensives have set, as well as the project’s overall emphasis on community accessibility. Picanco added, “We also liked the idea of utilizing a public space that is well-connected with the surrounding community, rather than hosting it somewhere more separated that is less accessible.” Class members were also inspired by the small size of the community restaurant space in the Underwear Factory, developing it in a way that made the event feel cozy and easy for audience members to connect with both the films and each other. On the night of the event, attendees were welcomed into the building and guided into the microcinema. The room was dimly lit by lamps that looked like cameras, or had film reel as lamp shades, and the day’s remaining sunlight snuck in through the cracks between the black shades and the window frame. Audience members shared easy conversation as they stared fascinated at the 16mm projector which was the centerpiece of the room.
This projector, as well as the other technical demands of the event, was operated by Event Technicians Makenna Brown ’28 [Disclaimer: Brown is the Photo Editor for The Miscellany News], Lucia Hornischer ’26 and Vinnie Palazzo ’26. The three were tasked with learning how to project and handle 16mm film in collaboration with Womp Haus (Vassar’s film production and equipment rental house), ordering the films and handling digital projection. Palazzo stated that working with the delicate 16mm prints and projector was the team’s most daunting task, as Vassar only has one of these expensive projectors.
Lastly, students were tasked with outreach, which was led by Outreach Coordinators Lily Siegel ’28 and Cody Siegel ’26. They were entrusted with curating a collaborative space in which Poughkeepsie, greater New York and Vassar community members could connect over avant-garde film. For Poughkeepsie outreach, the pair asked Main Street and Arlington business owners if they could put their poster up in their storefronts. Additionally, they worked with the Underwear Factory’s kitchen operations coordinator, Jayme Schultz, to publish the event information in a space that would be visible to the building’s residents. To connect with filmmakers all around New York, they contacted art collectives such as The Art Effect, Woodstock Film Festival, Upstate Films in Kingston and Arts Mid-Hudson. Additionly students spoke to the female experimental filmmakers from the Women’s Work Symposium hosted by the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, known as the Loeb, earlier this semester. To bring in scholars from greater New York, they reached out to film studies professors at Bard College, Marymount Manhattan College and The New School. Lastly, for Vassar outreach they discussed the event with EngagePK, a program that connects students with local events off-campus, the Film Majors’ Committee, urban studies professors, education professors, art history professors and the Loeb. Lily Siegel stated, “The challenge I encountered in the role was trying to make the event sound accessible if folks didn’t have prior Avant-garde film experience (just like me in the beginning of the semester).”
The films that were shown were, at first glance, confusing in their layout and content, but extremely captivating. The audience seemed enthralled by the sometimes indecipherable visuals and audio, formulating their own unique understandings of what each film was about, though with a little help from the pamphlet of film descriptions that was handed to each attendee at the door. One theme that held each film together was the exploration of memory in its meaning and how it is experienced, giving the event the title “Memory Theater.” Audience members were encouraged to digest each film as they watched the reel in the projector being switched by Hornischer and Palazzo, or the digital films being queued up by Brown. After the screening, attendees discussed what they saw and celebrated with refreshments. The event was a spectacle, showcasing avant-garde 16mm film in its most appropriate setting, through a celebration among community members who bring new life to this genre of film.