MAYSLES INSTITUTE : NEWS
The work of the Maysles Institute extends the Maysles Brothers’ principle that the lives and opinions of people not only deserve, but demand our attention. We strive to re-integrate the production, presentation and pedagogy of documentary film and video as a means of engaging individuals and communities in creative self-expression, communicating ideas, and advocating needs. Our two programs, Maysles Cinema and the Summer Film Program for Youth – provide a bridge for mutually transformative exchange between film student and professional, observer and selector.
The Maysles Cinema, the only movie theater in northern Manhattan dedicated to documentary film, serves as a site of community based, low-cost popular education and entertainment. Our programming is selected in collaboration with engaged viewers, independent curators, educators, filmmakers and in alliance with our city’s informal and well-established community and cultural groups. Drawing on Harlem’s history of cultural innovation and political agency, the Maysles Cinema provides a unique space for passionate and interactive exploration of topics of community interest. Breaking down the wall of disengagement found in the traditional film going experience, our presentations and series explode with life, reckoning and celebration.
The Maysles Institute’s Summer Film Program for Youth works diligently to bridge the film experience between practice, theory, and analysis. Over an intense six-week course, young people from the wider Harlem community gather to produce short documentaries that reinterpret and challenge notions of self-awareness, community, and power. During the course, participants learn varying production techniques centered on cooperative learning and peer facilitation activities. The program culminates in collaborative youth screenings of the participants work with the Maysles Cinema along with Cinema-based fall internships.
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