Meet Emelyn Stuart, Founder of Stuart Cinema and Café
🎭 Pro Spotlight: Stuart an independent producer and entrepreneur, who describes herself as “a business person who loves the arts.”
Emelyn Stuart, founder of Stuart Cinema and Café, knew it was time to open her own theater when staff members at the pricey venue she rented for her annual Ocktober Film Festival, turned off the lights during a filmmaker’s Q&A session.
“I offered to pay double the rate for their overtime if they would let us stay, but they said no—they were shutting down the venue,” recalls Stuart, an independent producer and entrepreneur, who describes herself as “a business person who loves the arts.”
For years, she rented expensive film venues all over New York City. Tired of being ripped off, she transformed a former warehouse into a cozy screening room and café at 79 West Street in Brooklyn and opened her doors in August, 2018. She’s now building a second venue in Brooklyn, a cinema with three screens and space for events and a cafe.
Stuart says she’s happy to provide independent filmmakers a high-quality space to screen their work without depending on a distribution deal.
“I want filmmakers to have a theatrical experience, including a 4K projector and a stage for talk backs,” said Stuart.
“We lent people DVDs for free and we had a laptop available for people who needed to file for unemployment benefits,” she said. “We offered free popcorn to kids in the neighborhood if they came in and told us what they thought about the last movie they watched.“
