In 2021, local artists Naveen Chaubal, Bryn Silverman, Demi Gardner, and Fitzgerald Junior conceived of a third space for film lovers in Louisville. Their passion—fortified by mini-grant funding and in-kind support from local art and culture organizations—became Hyphen Film Center.
As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in-person gatherings had become fewer and farther between than ever before. To help limit exposure to coronavirus, community engagement transitioned to online spaces. Business meetings, family visits, friend hangs, and even movie nights became livestreaming experiences. The comfort of physical togetherness was, for a long moment, lost.
“Remember going to the movies on a Friday night?” Hyphen Film Center’s founders asked in a statement. “You’d call up some friends and meet at the theater. You might not even get into your film of choice, but it didn’t matter—you were there with your people.” Naveen Chaubal, Bryn Silverman, Demi Gardner, and Fitzgerald Junior came together as filmmakers and cinema lovers to find a solution in Louisville. “We shared stories of what cinema meant to us and how it had shaped our identities.”
One founder had a projector, and another had a pair of speakers. Together, they found some church pews on Craigslist and soon after that, set up a makeshift screening space. What started as informal gatherings flourished beyond their expectations. “People kept coming,” the founders said. “Not just for the films, but for the feeling. For the connection.”
Watching their initial idea flicker into something truly luminary, Hyphen Film Center created a third space between the living room and the movie theater. “We began to see that an accessible cinema experience could play a vital role in rebuilding our social fabric.”
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In partnership with the Louisville Film Society, the Hyphen Film Center recently screened a program of short films as a part of the Flyover Film Festival. One of the films was “Maqluba” by Louisville-based Palestinian American filmmaker Mike Elsherif.
The founders’ mission is “to engage, enrich, and educate diverse audiences through innovative and accessible cinematic arts programming, while reducing social and economic barriers to participation,” they said. “We believe that film should be for everyone, and we strive to make space for stories that often go unheard or underrepresented.”
Hyphen Film Center sees itself as an extension of the Third Cinema movement, the aesthetic and political cinematic movement that began in the Global South as an alternative to Hollywood, considered First Cinema, and aesthetically focused Western European cinema, considered Second Cinema. Third Cinema films presented socially realistic portrayals of life, inclusive of the themes of colonialism, class, poverty, cultural practices, and personal identities. The term was coined by Argentine filmmakers Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino in their manifesto “Hacia un tercer cine” (“Toward a Third Cinema”) in 1969.
Hyphen Film Center is a volunteer-run organization that has received funding and other support from Color Congress, Fund for the Arts, Kentucky Humanities, Kentucky Foundation for Women, Asia Institute—Crane House, Logan Street Market, Louisville Public Media, KMAC, World Affairs Council, Speed Cinema, and the New Orleans Film Society. Donate to Hyphen Film Center and become part of the movement.
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This article appears in Aug 1-31, 2025.