A VISIT TO RERUN, BROOKLYN’S LATEST MOVIE VENUE

By Eric Kohn

The history of moviegoing in New York City is quintessential to the survival of the medium. Manhattan alone provided a healthy nexus of theatrical activity at the beginning of the 20th century, and in that regard, little has changed. The city continues to host dozens of theaters, including more arthouse venues than almost anywhere else in the world. From the usual specialty releases regularly showcased at the Sunshine and the Angelika to the storied repertory programming at prestigious fixtures like Film Forum and Lincoln Center, New Yorkers have innumerable eclectic opportunities to expand their cinematic horizons.

But movies without distribution have a hard time finding a certified route to these popular establishments. That’s a gap that the new reRun Gastropub Theater, which opened in the back room of reBar in Brooklyn’s hip Dumbo neighborhood on Friday, will help fill: The venue, a 60-seat screening room that includes a full bar and elaborate snack options, aims to focus on undistributed or overlooked indies from the festival circuit. Although the bar is owned and operated by Jason Stevens, freelance critic and Greencine Daily blogger Aaron Hillis has been hired to manage the program. A good friend and colleague of yours truly, Hillis resides at the heart of Indiewood as an occasional filmmaker (his documentary “Fish Kill Flea” made the festival rounds in 2007), programmer, and journalist, and he also serves as VP of the DVD label Benten Films — a quadruple-threat that allows him to keep up with plenty of the noteworthy low budget achievements struggling to get noticed.

On Friday, I made it out to the 11:30pm screening of reRun’s opening night feature, Frank Ross’s chatty lo-fi character study “Audrey the Trainwreck.” Ross, a Chicago-based filmmaker whose movies are distinguishable by an attentiveness to overlapping dialogue and the positioning of extreme frustration as comedy, premiered “Audrey” at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March. By bringing his movie to reRun, he managed to get publicity from The New York Times, The New Yorker and several other outlets (including, well, this one). With “Audrey” playing at … Read the rest

TWO PREMIERES: reRUN and “AUDREY THE TRAIN WRECK”

By Scott Macaulay

Any new New York independent movie theater, one showing not mini-major studio moveovers but recently premiered festival films that don’t have formal distribution, is cause for celebration. But we at Filmmaker are hailing the new reRun for one other reason: it’s in our building. That’s right, after a long day solving the crises of the current indie scene, we can head downstairs and enjoy not only movies but pretzels filled with garlic mashed potatoes, popcorn with duck fat, and microbrews. That’s right, you can eat and drink inside this theater, which is down the hall from reBar. (Menu preview courtesy of Gothamist.). Aaron Hillis, of the Village Voice and GreenCine, is doing the programming, and he’s launching with Frank V. Ross’s Audrey the Train Wreck, produced by Adam Donaghey and Mike Ryan, whose “Straight Talk” on the current state of things kicked up a lot of discussion in last issue’s Filmmaker.

Here, Hillis talks to the New York Times about his programming plans:

“I hope to be able to be an indie-film hero, to be able to give week runs to films that have no distribution or poor distribution,” Mr. Hillis said. For young filmmakers in the increasingly competitive indie market — in which a proliferation of films and a dearth of gung-ho buyers have made distribution harder to achieve — reRun offers some hope.

The New Year, the debut feature of Brett Haley, 26, will play later this month. “For a film like mine to get a week run in New York is crazy,” he said. “I get reviews I’d never get, I get exposure I’d never get.”

Mr. Haley said that his film, a slice-of-life character tale made for $8,000, had been well received at festivals — it won the audience award at the Sarasota Film Festival this year — but had had no bites from distributors. “You’re told your movie’s great, but it’s not marketable,” he said. Having a New York screening, he added, helps prove the doubters wrong.

Frank Ross will be attending the Friday screening. Please check it out and … Read the rest