Midwood Movie
Midwood Movie
| 11 May 2024 (USA)
Midwood Movie Trailers

An exploration of the site of the first purpose-built modern film studio in the US (American Vitagraph Company) which operated from 1907 through the silent era, was repurposed into a yeshiva school for girls in the early 1980s, and rebuilt in 2000s for residential use with the original 70-foot smokestack still intact. The film includes interviews with film historians and descendants of the studio founders; re-photographed nitrate fragments of films that were produced at the Brooklyn studios over 100 years ago; and original footage shot inside the yeshiva school and of the building during and after demolition. The film explores both profound resistances and persistent echoes of national and local cultural histories, the archeology of the American film industry, local neighborhood demographics, gentrification, and politics.

Reviews
InformationRap

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

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Erica Derrick

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

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Ella-May O'Brien

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

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Gary

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

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