Rockaways, in Queens
Arverne Cinema
Occasional Screening Host · 72-02 Gouverneur Ave
An open-air cinema in Arverne built by Rockaway Film Festival volunteers in 2021 and walled with recycled scraps of the boardwalk that Hurricane Sandy destroyed.
Sam Fleischner, the festival's co-founder and artistic director, designed and built it over a single summer with neighborhood builders and volunteers.
An indoor counterpart was finished in time for the festival's seventh edition in 2024, which turned the site into a base for community cinema and arts programming roughly nine months of the year.
The Rockaways went without a commercial cinema after the Surfside Twin closed in 1996, so film out here has been a matter of people building their own places to watch.
