The term “microcinema,” according to Criterion Collection, has been applied since the 1990s to describe local DIY-type spaces or series curated with “an idiosyncratic mix of programming (whether little- or well-known movies),” but the word hardly does justice to the “cozy, communal, handmade, human feel” the author experienced in New York’s microcinemas.
Dallas is about to get its own microcinema, the first one I know of, although, according to Glasstire, some sort of microcinematic movement in Texas dates back to “subversive, clandestine screenings of the 1960s, when artists who were unable to screen their films in popular cinemas began hosting renegade screenings in their apartments, cafes, porn theaters, community centers and so on.”
If you had to guess the best place in Dallas to launch a microcinema, if you know our neighborhood at all, you’d guess Oak Cliff’s Tyler Station, the 100-year-old factory building at the Tyler/Vernon DART stop repurposed by an East Dallas artist and South Dallas developer as “a place for thinkers, doers and makers.”
And you’d be correct. The newest of Tyler Station’s 60+ tenants is the Spacy 35-seat microcinema, which will operate in a spot next to Oak Cliff Bike Synergy.
Poster provided by Spacy Microcinema
The aim is “to foster connections and collaborations among artists and audiences across a variety of ideas, perspectives, art forms, and disciplines, all through the medium of moving images,” founder and operator Tony Nguyen says.
Tony — who has worked as programming coordinator for the Dallas International Film Festival and curated Texas Theater’s queer programming series Pleasure Style Attitude (alongside senior programmer Daniel Laabs, he says) and who is on staff at Orange County’s Viet Film Fest and Austin Asian American Film Festival — loves the movie theater business but has neither the means nor desire to own a large cinema, he says.
But the microcinema concept had appeal. And the time is right.
“Both multiplex and mom and pop independent theaters are being shut down,” Tony says. “Having alternative spaces for exhibition is key to building an infrastructure that can support choices and works that welcome and encourages myriad perspectives to come into the door. The intimacy and intentionality from programming of a microcinema can appeal to anyone as the micro is macro and vice versa.”
The microcinema exists “somewhere between the established arthouse theater catering to outlier consumers and the lonely act of web-surfing for offbeat films,” writes Nicolas Pedrero-Setzer for Shoe Leather. Tony says the article covers some of the microcinema ethos that drew him in.
Tony tells us Tyler Station was the perfect (and pretty much the only reasonable) place for his theater. And it’s nice that it’s close to the historic Texas Theater, a normal size venue on Jefferson that offers ample alternative programming. He hopes Spacy can be a launchpad for more Texas microcinema experiences.
Programming at Spacy
The first scheduled screening on Thursday Aug. 3 is Anhell69, a 2022 Spanish-language documentary about a group of young transgender people in Medellín, “a violent and conservative city.” This will be part of an ongoing series titled “Drag of Genre,” which, according to the theater, “explores queer cinema” and “aims to establish relationships between queer performance and marginalized political histories that have been overlooked or rejected.” Other films in the series include the 2023 movie Gush and the 1982 film Pals.
On screen the following night are two 1957 “cinematic gems” by legendary Japanese director Yasuzō Masumura, Kisses (a couple whose fathers are both in the same prison meet) and The Blue Sky Maiden (a young woman is sent by her sophisticated family to the coastal region where her sick grandmother informs her that she is not who she thought she was).
Nothing but a Man (a proud black man and his school-teacher wife face discriminatory challenges in 1960s America) — part of the Homecoming film series at Spacy — will show that first weekend along with re-playings of the aforementioned films.
Other series showing in August include The Films of Axelle Ropert, a full retrospective a French visionary whose exploration into the human condition continues to shape and redefine the art of storytelling — Little Solange, Miss and the Doctors, The Apple of My Eye and The Wolberg Family as well as the micro series Beyond Endurance with two Jang Sun-woo-directed films — The Road to the Racetrack and Timeless Bottomless Bad Movie.
The full August calendar is available here. All events are $10 and, for now, you can only order one ticket per transaction online. Or purchase in person — box office opens 30 minutes prior to the first screening of the day. If you love this idea, you can also donate to the small operation.
