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GIFT IDEAS:
CAC and Cult Cafe merch! CLICK HERE!
CLICK HERE for Cinema Gift Cards which can be used for tickets, membership, and cafe items. (Electronic gift cards are delivered immediately.)
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We've Been Nominated
CLICK HERE to vote for the Cinema Arts Centre - the best movie theater and your home away from home!
VOTING ENDS 12/15/25!
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Let's Talk About Revenue Pie!
Over the past year, the Cinema Arts Centre has delivered hundreds of community programs and thousands of screenings to our members and patrons. We serve thousands of public school students with programs that supplement curriculum. We are home to many film festivals, including the Made in Huntington Film Festival, the Long Island Youth Film Festival, The Reel Abilities Film Festival, the Long Island Jewish Film Festival, and more! We host special guests like directors, actors, writers, and scholars. We are an accessible "third place" for friends and neighbors to spend time together outside of home or work. And it has been calculated through both Americans for the Arts and the Long Island Arts Alliance that approximately $7,000,000 in spending happens in our local area because of Cinema Arts Centre activities and our role as a local employer. We have a cultural, social, educational, and economic impact, improving quality of life on Long Island.
It takes financial resources to make all this impact and all these programs possible. Our earned income includes ticket sales, cafe sales, rentals, and advertising. These funds go a long way to fuel our mission. But we must also raise contributed income to complete our revenue pie, including foundation grants, government contracts, corporate sponsorships, and two very important ways for individuals to help ensure our ability to continue serving our community.
1) Members contribute to this piece of our revenue pie when they join, renew, or upgrade their memberships:
| 2) Each year we ask our members (and anyone who wants to support our independent film programs) to make a fully tax-deductible unrestricted financial gift to the Cinema Arts Centre through our Vic Skolnick Life of Our Cinema Campaign. These gifts create this vital piece of our revenue pie. Without them, we are not fully-funded. This is the pie piece we are working on right now: | |
These are two opportunities each year for you to be part of the movement that makes our vital cultural hub and community events possible - once when you join, renew or upgrade your memebership, and right now when you make a fully tax-deductible gift to the Life of Our Cinema.
This year, we must raise $230,000 in program and operating support. Year after year, our independent audits show that we spend an average of 80% of funds raised on direct program expenses and only 20% on all administration and overhead.
We have a long way to go to reach our goal, but if all of our members choose to make an above-and-beyond membership year-end gift, we will make it!
CLICK HERE to give now.
Thank you so much for being part of our community.
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Help Wish Charlotte Sky a Happy 95th Birthday!
Charlotte Sky, Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Cinema Arts Centre, turns 95 on December 29. Let's wish her a wonderful birthday together. We will be collecting birthday wishes and campaign donations in honor of Char's birthday through the end of the year.
CLICK HERE to share your messgae with Char.
CLICK HERE to make your gift in honor of Char's 50th Birthday.
We will share all your messages with Char and let her know how much money was raised in her honor to support our programs and operations.
CLICK HERE for our unedited interview with Char from 2015.
From the interview, Char speaks on the advent of the VCR in the 80s:
"That was a big crisis when VCRs first appeared. Of course, we knew that people would want to have access to films at home, but we also knew that would be a real downturn for us. And it was. It was a disaster. Our membership, which had been climbing, really declined seriously. We were thinking, Are people going to come back?...
"Gradually, though, I think people didn’t really want to just be home all the time. They didn’t want to be housebound. People started coming back, coming out again. It was a revival. We were stunned; we didn’t know that would happen.
"I think people missed having other people around. They missed coming to a place that, in a way, is like an inner sanctum. You come into a dark room where—hopefully—you won’t get the interference you get at home: the phone ringing, someone at your door, family interrupting...
"In the theater, you enter into this world—I'd like to say of make-believe, but really a world that transports you and transforms you. That experience can’t be duplicated on your home screen or in your home environment."
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Our Limited Series Closed with a Night of Joy in November. What's Next?
Earlier this year, the Cinema Arts Centre reached out to gender-expansive people and allies in our community to form a committee with a purpose to educate, elevate, celebrate, and mobilize in support of transgender, non-binary, intersex individuals, and people of all genders. Fueled by the belief that a society that recognizes the existence, dignity, and rights of all gender identities is one in which everyone is safer and more free, we took a visible stand in support of gender-expansive lives.
The Cinema's role was to empower and resource our community committee to design and present a limited series. The committee chose the name "the Cinema Arts Centre Committee for Gender Awareness and Empowerment" and set to work, designing and implementing a limited series that included screening and discussion programs, educational sessions, and a closing night party curated by local artist Robert Stenzel which featured trans and gender-expansive artists and performers in a "Night of Joy." The evening culminated in a performance by Andraleia Buch with Empathology, her musical-empathy based improvisational framework including many local musicians, and with a filming for an upcoming short film by Robert Stenzel.
Our limited series was co-sponsored by longtime Cinema Arts Centre member and supporter, Ellen Hughey Reynolds, and Gender Equality New York, Inc (GENY).
Juli Grey-Owens, Executive Director of GENY shared, “We are deeply grateful for the Cinema Arts Centre’s support in presenting both the film series and the Gender 101 workshop. It is vital for the public to understand that transgender people are simply people—human beings who happen to be transgender. It is neither a choice nor a belief system. Programs like these help normalize our community, foster public understanding, and influence social attitudes in meaningful ways. Ultimately, we hope the public recognizes that allowing gender-expansive people to live authentically is essential to their health, dignity, and well-being.”
Co-Sponsor Ellen Hughey Reynolds shared, "I was truly thrilled to have been asked to be a sponsor of this program. It resonated for me in many ways - starting with the simple goal of respecting each and every human being and doing anything I can to support them while educating others. Community is all-important to me, and this was one way to strengthen our local community while simultaneously letting my trans and non-binary brothers, sisters, and friends know that I have their back."
One highlight from our series was our presentation of THE PEOPLE'S JOKER, co-presented with Pride Cinema. The Cinema Arts Centre's own Penelope Taglieri interviewed the director Vera Drew and led an engaging conversation with the audience.
Committee members Rene Bouchard, Juli Grey-Owens, Anne Seifried, Robert Stenzel, Penelope Taglieri, and Spencer Tanchuck all played vital roles in the planning and implementation of our series. Discussion programs included participation from film directors and community representatives. Academy Award winner Sean Baker sent a special video message to our Cinema community. Julie Cohen appeared in-person with her documentary EVERY BODY. And directors Vera Drew and Jane Wagner appeared via zoom.
While our inaugural limited series has concluded, our committee is excited to continue to bring programs periodically that lift up trans and gender-expansive stories. So, stay tuned!
The Cinema Arts Centre has a long history of using the power of film and the power of our platform to lift the voices of historically excluded, marginalized, and/or underrepresented people. Education, awareness, and compassion have always been deeply integral to our mission. We are grateful to be working with many community partners to ensure we are a safe home for everyone.
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FREE EVENTS!
Join us for two free events that explore the complex legacy of Italian mobilities and the changing meaning of ‘Italianness’, both in Italy and on Long Island. Through cinematic storytelling, they trace narratives of migration, labor, and identity across generations, illuminating how movement shapes experiences of citizenship, ethnicity, and belonging.
Together, Maka and Christ in Concrete offer a compelling lens through which to examine the intertwined histories of departures and arrivals, and the evolving meanings of ‘home’. They invite reflection on the enduring impact of migration on local communities like Huntington, and on the broader Italian diaspora in the USA.
By exploring new and old Italian migrations, to and from Italy, the events will also trace the genesis of Dardanelles, a forthcoming documentary largely set in Huntington, which takes the life and work of Pietro Di Donato as a departure point for a reflection on identity, heritage, and the continuing resonance of the Italian diasporic experience. An exclusive preview of Dardanelles, a collaboration between Brioni and Moutamid, will be included in the two events, with the authors discussing the journey that took them from Christ in Concrete and Maka to this new project.
This work is supported by Long Island Grants for the Arts through funds provided by the office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and administered by The Huntington Arts Council.
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Sponsored Content and Special Thanks to our Current
Program and Reception Sponsors:
| | CLICK HERE to review current sponsorship opportunities. | | The Cinema Arts Centre is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization. The mission of the Cinema Arts Centre is to bring the best in cinematic artistry to Long Island, and use the power of film to expand the awareness and consciousness of our community. | | | Cinema Arts Centre programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. | | | Burt and Stanley Shaffer Foundation | |
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