New hub aims to support local filmmakers
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The Rathaus Artist Residency Theatre design. Rendering: Dash Marshall
Local filmmakers are getting a new early-career support center on the east side.
Why it matters: Detroit's arts community includes a long tradition of filmmaking, but some feel there's limited opportunity to screen local films, learn and share ideas across the industry.
Driving the news: Brooklyn- and Detroit-based production company Rathaus Films plans to open the filmmaker hub next summer, according to a news release.
- The Rathaus Artist Residency Theatre will offer free programming for artists, office workspace with free post-production technology and gathering rooms.
- Plus, there'll be space to screen both completed films and works in progress for feedback.
The intrigue: The new-build space is being designed by architecture studio Dash Marshall, which also converted a Midtown garage into an expanded home for the Detroit Public Theatre.
Context: The plan to create a central resource for the city's filmmaking community builds on Rathaus' three-year-old grant program, giving between $10,000 and $20,000 annually.
- Plus, applications open this winter for Rathaus' new biannual live-in filmmaker residency for both local filmmakers and non-locals.
What they're saying: The idea came from how helpful it was for filmmakers to connect with each other at a mixer for the grant program, Rathaus co-founder Kevin Steen tells Axios.
- "I'm just very excited about this kind of being a new concept," Steen adds. "There are obviously film residencies, there's micro cinemas and screening rooms, but the convergence of making work and screening it — and it all being kind of under one roof — is very interesting to me."
Zoom out: Rathaus will open in Little Village, a new arts-centric development area where a church was renovated into a gallery called the Shepherd.
- It's also home to other arts studios, Collect bar and bakery Warda Patisserie.
- The Little Village area is growing quickly as its developers — Anthony and JJ Curis of art gallery Library Street Collective — also plan a nearby 13-acre riverfront development called Stanton Yards.
The big picture: The region's indie movie scene has taken some hits in recent years, with the closures of Cinema Detroit's brick-and-mortar theater and Royal Oak's Main Art Theater.
- Much of the conversation around Detroit's movie industry has also centered on desires to revive Michigan's film tax credit.
- The discussion has surfaced off and on since the tax credit was repealed in 2015, and its renewal has never materialized.
Other organizations currently screening local and indie films include Cinema Detroit's pop-up events, Mothlight Microcinema and the Senate Theater.