DTLA: Chinatown, in Central L.A.
Now Instant Image Hall
Cinema · 939 Chung King Rd
A cinema and bookstore on Chung King Road, the pedestrian alley of galleries in Chinatown, where the screening program and the shelves are run as one operation.
Chung King Road is a walkway rather than a street, lined with small storefronts long given over to galleries, and the venue occupies one of them. There is no marquee and not much of a lobby, so the door is the whole frontage.
Being a bookstore as well as a cinema sets both the size of the audience and the kind of booking that makes sense. Artist film and small-run documentaries sit more comfortably here than a first-run release would.
