Films at the Gate » neighborhood

Live from Chinatown Park: Films at the Gate

Sam — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 01:26:19 +0000

We’re all sitting in the middle of Chinatown park, half way through our last film, and there isn’t an empty chair in the house.

Thanks to everyone for joining us at Films at the Gate 2009.

See you next year.

Films at the Gate: time-lapse videos

Sam — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:01:55 +0000

Here’s a different angle on Films at the Gate: a series of time-lapse videos showing the vacant lot transformed into a movie theater (and then back again):

Films at the Gate T-shirts, locally produced.

Sam — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 06:57:15 +0000

Thursday and Friday afternoons, stop by the lot and watch a live silk screening session. Before the films begin, volunteers will be printing original Films at the Gate T-shirts, which will be for sale to help raise money for this community event. Thanks to Catherine Lim and Scott Ferebee for working on designs and pulling together this outdoor, printing session.

Photos from Thursday Night

Sam — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 04:02:47 +0000

This SlideShowPro photo gallery requires the Flash Player plugin and a web browser with JavaScript enabled.

Photography by Jeremy Brown.

Films at the Gate to visit Greenway for a night

Sam — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:48:22 +0000

In 2006, when Films at the Gate first transformed a vacant lot into an outdoor cinema, next door was a sandy construction site where a park was taking shape. With permission, we drew power from a contractor’s trailer, which sat in the middle of what is now, officially, Chinatown Park and the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway.

This year, we’re going to return the favor and make a visit to the Greenway.

In the middle of our run, on Saturday night, August 29, we’ll move the show next door to Chinatown Park, just on the other side of the Chinatown Gate. We’re grateful to the Greenway Conservancy for working with us to make this possible.

Come down and enjoy the show (and the park).

Explore Chinatown and Films at the Gate via EveryScape.com

Sam — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:59:49 +0000

Films at the Gate has teamed up with EveryScape.com to help you get to know Chinatown, even before you set foot downtown.

EveryScape is a local company that creates web-based environments where online visitors can “walk” the streets of Boston and explore inside participating businesses. For example, once inside a restaurant, you can roam around the dining room, check out the feel of a place, review the menu, and sometimes even peek in the kitchen.

EveryScape has been working with Films at the Gate to bring more of Chinatown’s unique restaurants and retail spaces online, which will help our local businesses reach new customers and draw people downtown.

Want to learn more? Start by visiting EveryScape.com to explore the vacant lot where Films at the Gate happens every year. Then come on down and join us next week for the films.

(Contact Anthony Madrigal to learn more about adding your business to EveryScape.)

Something’s blooming next door. . .

Sam — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 05:00:33 +0000

Learn more about small things 2, an art installation next to Films at the Gate.
Visit the department of micro-urbanism and click on “small things project_2″.

New Hudson Street gallery to open next door to Films at the Gate.

Sam — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 18:09:28 +0000

Films at the Gate salutes the grand opening of a new neighbor: the Hudson Street Gallery. The new art space in Boston’s Chinatown will open on Saturday, September 6, from 12:00-5:00 PM. The gallery is located a few doors down from the Films at the Gate lot, so drop in before you catch Saturday night’s film THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN.

The Hudson Street Gallery seeks to “honor the history and heritage of Chinatown and its immigrant communities while providing a home for contemporary artists to explore issues of geography, ethnicity and urbanism.” The gallery features several contemporary photographers and also historical images of Chinatown provided by The Asian Community Development Corporation. The historical photos include images of Hudson Street and the destructive impact the former Central Artery had on the neighborhood and its people.

Jean Lukitsh Reflects on Chinatown’s Former Movie Theaters

Jean L — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:10:07 +0000

Thanks to Jean Lukitsh, Films at the Gate curator, for sharing this entry about Chinatown’s old movie houses. More photos and theater memorabila here (via Flickr).

When I came to Boston in 1978, there were three Chinese-language movie theaters in Chinatown: the Star, the China, and the Pagoda. The Star, on Essex St. at Harrison Ave., and the China, on Beach St. near the Gate, were owned by Mr. Stanley Wong. The Pagoda was on Washington St. It’s now the Empire Garden restaurant.

One of the projectionists from the China studied tai chi with my teacher. I was looking for a job and I loved movies. Someone was leaving the Star in a couple of months, and I was able to take his place. That turned out to be the best job I ever had!

The Star was an old vaudeville theater that had been partitioned at some time into two side-by-side screens. The original theater was so big that the subdivided spaces were still sizable rooms. At ﬁrst, only the left side was used. It showed movies from the giant Shaw Brothers studio in Hong Kong. Around 1983, the right side was restored and opened, and indie movies from Hong Kong, like the Cinema City and Film Workshop productions, ran there. The China, tucked under a parking garage where the Hei La Moon restaurant is now, specialized in Taiwanese ﬁlms. From 1979 to 1986, I worked at both the Star and the China, running double features on all screens in programs that changed weekly.

The ones that made an impression on me back then were Lau Kar-leung’s kung fu epics like SHAOLIN MANTIS, 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN, and MY YOUNG AUNTIE, Shaw studio wuxia ﬁlms like THE LADY HERMIT and JADE TIGER, and Jackie Chan’s early kung fu comedies: FEARLESS HYENA, DRUNKEN MASTER, and YOUNG MAS- TER. I have to confess, though, that those last two ﬁlms played at the Pagoda. Not one of my boss’ theaters. But I went there, paid for a ticket, and spent my day off in a Chinese theater, watching yet another kung fu movie.

As little mom-and-pop video stores appeared all over Chinatown in the late 1980s, the theaters lost their audiences and closed down. It was cheaper for a whole family to rent a video instead of buying tickets. In some ways, the new video technology is good. It’s made Asian ﬁlm available to a wider audience, and has helped to preserve old ﬁlms that otherwise may disappear or be forgotten. But the community lost a space where people used to come together and sit for a couple of hours, see old friends and get caught up with each others’ lives.

Jean Lukitsh is the curator of the Films at the Gate series. Jean is a former resident of Chinatown, and was the projectionist for two of the three cinemas that existed in Boston’s Chinatown in the 70s and 80s. Jean is a regular contributor to the popular website Kung Fu Cinema, a student of local wushu Master Bow Sim Mark, and a martial arts teacher in Boston.