The theater run by Downtown Community Television Center will first screen Abigail Disney’s doc, ‘The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales’
Manhattan’s Downtown Community Television Center celebrated the opening of the media arts center’s long-anticipated nonprofit, 67-seat movie theater, Firehouse: DCTV’s Cinema for Documentary Film, on Tuesday.
The only movie theater in New York City dedicated to screening documentaries, Firehouse is an official Academy Award-qualifying theater that will screen first-run films and curated programs.
On Sept. 23, Abigail Disney and Kathleen Hughes’ self-distributed “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales” about the growing inequalities in America and better pay for Disneyland cast members, will be the inaugural docu to play at Firehouse cinema. The week-long screening will serve as the film’s qualifying run in New York. Disney is set to appear in person for opening weekend Q&As.
At a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Tuesday, Disney said, “It takes courage to poke big Mouse in the eye, and you (Firehouse) are doing it right out of the gate.”
Located in a landmarked firehouse building in Manhattan’s Chinatown, Firehouse cinema was funded by New York state and city. The project was conceived over two decades ago and took approximately two years to complete.
Co-founded in 1972 by Academy Award-nominated docu filmmaker Jon Alpert (“Life of Crime 1984-2020”) and his wife, doc producer Keiko Tsuno, DCTV has supported documentary filmmakers for the last 50 years.
