HELP WANTED
Part-Time Bookkeeper
The Downing is looking for a part-time bookkeeper (2–3 hours per week). The ideal candidate will be a flexible, conscientious self-starter with QuickBooks experience and the ability to complete payroll, state and federal taxes, etc. Work experience is a plus, and enjoyment of movies will be helpful.
Click here for an application. Mail the completed application to Downing Film Center, 19 Front Street, Newburgh, NY 12550; or email it as an attachment to downingfilmcenter@gmail.com.
The Downing is an equal opportunity employer.
VIRTUAL CINEMA SCREENINGS
Although the Downing Film Center remains temporarily closed, film distributors are partnering with us to provide online access to their films, so you can indulge your love of cinema from home. In addition, you’ll be supporting the Downing because a portion of each ticket purchase will go to the film center!
Scroll down for information about the films currently available for streaming.
Be aware that to support the Downing, you must use the purchasing links in our eNews or on this website.
Click here for additional information about this virtual cinema program.
ELLA fitzgerald
Click or tap on the poster for details, including pricing, a trailer, and a link to purchase a virtual ticket.
Tracing the story of Ella Fitzgerald’s life, this documentary film explores how her music became a soundtrack for a tumultuous century. From a 1934 talent contest at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, the film follows Ella’s extraordinary journey across give decades as she reflects the passions and troubles of the times in her music and her life.
and the birds rained down
Click or tap on the poster for details, including pricing, a trailer, and a link to purchase a virtual ticket.
In this meditative drama about time and friendship, award-winning director Louise Archambault (Familia, Gabrielle) weaves together the stories of three aging hermits who have left their former lives and gone “off the grid” into the Quebec landscape.
miss juneteenth
Click or tap on the poster for details, including pricing, a trailer, and a link to purchase a virtual ticket.
Turquoise Jones is a single mom who holds down a household, a rebellious teenager, and pretty much everything that goes down at Wayman’s BBQ & Lounge. Turquoise is also a bona fide beauty queen—she was once crowned Miss Juneteenth, a title commemorating the day slaves in Texas were freed—two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Life didn’t turn out as beautifully as the title promised, but Turquoise, determined to right her wrongs, is cultivating her daughter, Kai, to become Miss Juneteenth, even if Kai wants something else.
quarantine cat film fest
Click or tap on the poster for details, including pricing, a trailer, and a link to purchase a virtual ticket.
Amateur filmmakers from around the world filmed their beloved cats during COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. This compilation reel brings together the cutest, funniest, bravest and most loving of these videos, exclusively filmed during the pandemic.
all I can say
Click or tap on the poster for details, including pricing, a trailer, and a link to purchase a virtual ticket.
Raw autobiographical video footage reveals Blind Melon frontman Shannon Hoon’s life as an addict from 1990 until his death in 1995. This documentary assesses the band’s ascent in popularity against the backdrop of Hoon’s struggles, shedding light on the sacrifices that come with achieving success and fame.
THE LAST TREE
Click or tap on the poster for details, including pricing, a trailer, and a link to purchase a virtual ticket.
The Last Tree follows the story of Femi, a British boy of Nigerian heritage who, after a happy childhood in rural Lincolnshire, moves to inner London to live with his mum. Struggling with the unfamiliar culture and values of his new environment, teenage Femi has to figure out which path to adulthood he wants to take, and what it means to be a young black man in London.
BEATS
Click or tap on the poster for details, including pricing, a trailer, and a link to purchase a virtual ticket.
A universal story of friendship, rebellion, and the irresistible power of music set against the backdrop of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994, which banned unlicensed raves across the UK, Beats follows best friends and polar opposites Johnno and Spanner who, realizing they are destined for different futures, sneak out to an illegal party in pursuit of one last crazy night together.
Aviva
Click or tap on the poster for details, including pricing, a trailer, and a link to purchase a virtual ticket.
Incorporating exultant dance sequences, Aviva captures a restless, frenzied and very fluid moment in time where the male–female dynamic is demystified and laid bare like never before.
runner
Click or tap on the poster for details, including pricing, a trailer, and a link to purchase a virtual ticket.
When he was only eight, Guor Mading Maker (known as Guor Marial) ran from capture in war-torn Sudan to eventually seek safety in the US. In his new life, Maker began running again, participating in high school track and field and eventually becoming a sensation and qualifying for the 2012 Olympics. But because the newly formed South Sudan was not recognized by the International Olympic Committee, Maker had to fight to compete independently, refusing to run for Sudan and taking a stand against its oppression.
CREATING a character
Click or tap on the poster for details, including pricing, a trailer, and a link to purchase a virtual ticket.
What do Jessica Chastain, Viola Davis, Patti LuPone and Alex Sharp have in common? They are but a few of the extraordinary actors who have studied under Moni Yakim at Juilliard, America’s greatest performing arts school. With interviews with Laura Linney, Anthony Mackie and Kevin Kline, this compelling portrait of the master teacher—the sole remaining founder of the school’s legendary Drama Division—takes us inside the drama classes where Moni and his wife Mina pour their love and passion into preparing the next generation of actors for the spotlight.
for they know not what they do
Click or tap on the poster for details, including pricing, a trailer, and a link to purchase a virtual ticket.
From the director/producer of For The Bible Tells Me So comes a new film that continues the conversation about the impact of religious belief on the lives of LGBTQ people. It challenges the far right’s use of the Bible and the U.S. Constitution to fight against equality for LGBTQ citizens and takes on the horrors of reparative therapy.
Mr. topaze
Click or tap on the poster for details, including pricing, a trailer, and a link to purchase a virtual ticket.
Honest French teacher Auguste Topaze (Peter Sellers) is fired after refusing to alter the bad grades of a baroness’ grandson. Sensing an opportunity, actress Suzy (Nadia Gray) convinces her lover, corrupt city council member Castel Benac (Herbert Lom), to hire Topaze as a managing director for one of his businesses, arguing that Topaze’s well-known honesty will protect the company from suspicion. When Topaze learns he is being used, he decides to swindle his manipulators.
IN MY BLOOD IT RUNS
Click or tap on the poster for details, including pricing, a trailer, and a link to purchase a virtual ticket.
Ten-year-old Dujuan is a child-healer, a good hunter, speaks two indigenous languages, but is “failing” in school. With little space in the western system for Dujuan’s language and culture his grandmother Carol is fighting a loving battle to give him a strong Arrernte education alongside his western education lest he become another statistic in juvenile detention or the welfare system. We walk with him as he grapples this educational schism and somewhere in-between finds a space to dream, imagine and hope for his future self. With the guidance of Arrernte Elders our shared vision is that it will not reiterate the ignorance or the statistics of injustice, abuse and neglect we so often see when we turn on the news, but will creatively accentuate the strengths, the insights of Dujuan, his family, his community and through their story, First Nations families everywhere.
DIRT MUSIC
Click or tap on the poster for details, including pricing, a trailer, and a link to purchase a virtual ticket.
Georgie (Kelly Macdonald), sometime sailor, diver and nurse use to have guts. But somehow she has lost her way. Stranded in a remote fishing town on the West Australian coast she’s living with a man she doesn’t love, Jim (David Wenham) and his young sons whose dead mother she can never replace. But a reckless moment leads to a life-changing encounter with Lu (Garrett Hedlund), an enigmatic loner, one time musician and sometimes poacher, outcast from the community. The two are powerfully drawn to each other and embark on an inescapable, intense and sexually charged affair.
Sometimes always Never
Click or tap on the poster for details, including pricing, a trailer, and a link to purchase a virtual ticket.
A man searches tirelessly for his missing son who he has not seen in years. When a body is located, the entire family’s life is turned upside-down and they must all learn how to reconnect with one another.
tommaso
Click or tap on the poster for details, including pricing, a trailer, and a link to purchase a virtual ticket.
A broken man searching for stability finds a new life in Italy with a much younger wife. He struggles to reconcile this new beginning with the stumbles of the past.
URSULA VON RYDINGSVARD: INto her own
Click or tap on the poster for details, including pricing, a trailer, and a link to purchase a virtual ticket.
Ursula Von Rydingsvard: Into Her Own is an artistic biography of one of the few women in the world working in monumental sculpture. Von Rydingsvard’s work has been featured in the Venice Biennale and is held in the collections of some of the world’s great museums, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. But she may be best-known for work in public spaces – imposing pieces painstakingly crafted with complex surfaces.
Read about Von Rydingsvard’s works at the Hudson Valley’s own Storm King Art Center here.
THE SURROGATE
Click or tap on the poster for details, including pricing, a trailer, and a link to purchase a virtual ticket.*
Jess Harris, a 29 year old web designer for a nonprofit in Brooklyn, is ecstatic to be the surrogate and egg-donor for her best friend Josh and his husband Aaron. Twelve weeks into the pregnancy, a prenatal test comes back with unexpected results that pose a moral dilemma. As they all consider the best course of action, the relationship between the three friends is put to the test.
* When you click the poster, you will be asked to create a free Vimeo account or log in to your Vimeo account if you already have one. Once you have done so, a purchase window will open for you to enter your payment information. In this window, a discount promo code (DOWNING) should already have been automatically applied, to decrease the rental price from $18 to $12.
If you find that AFTER you click on the poster and log in to Vimeo, the discount code has NOT been automatically applied, you can apply the code manually. To do so, click or tap the RENT $18 button, and then enter the discount promo code (DOWNING) along with your payment information.
You do not have to pay $18 to rent this film!
shirley
Click or tap on the poster for details, including pricing, a trailer, and a link to purchase a virtual ticket.
Renowned horror writer Shirley Jackson is on the precipice of writing her masterpiece when the arrival of newlyweds upends her meticulous routine and heightens tensions in her already tempestuous relationship with her philandering husband. The middle-aged couple, prone to ruthless barbs and copious afternoon cocktails, begins to toy mercilessly with the naïve young couple at their door.
Lucky Grandma
Click or tap on the poster for details, including pricing, a trailer, and a link to purchase a virtual ticket.
In the heart of Chinatown, New York, an ornery, chain-smoking, newly widowed 80-year-old Grandma (Tsai Chin) is eager to live life as an independent woman, despite the worry of her family. When a local fortune teller (Wai Ching Ho) predicts a most auspicious day in her future, Grandma decides to head to the casino and goes all in, only to land herself on the wrong side of luck…suddenly attracting the attention of some local gangsters. Desperate to protect herself, Grandma employs the services of a bodyguard from a rival gang (Corey Ha) and soon finds herself right in the middle of a Chinatown gang war.
Future Possibilities
Our Sponsors
Who Are We
The Downing Film Center is 501(c)(3) member-supported nonprofit arts organization dedicated to presenting quality films, not always available locally, and providing cinematic programming from around the world in collaboration with and for the benefit of the Hudson Valley’s diverse communities. The Downing is a free-speech theater that neither censors nor endorses.
Where Are We
The Downing is located at 19 Front Street in Newburgh, New York, on the bottom floor of the former Yellow Bird Gallery building. Our entrance is directly across Front Street from Billy Joe’s Ribworks. Free parking is available in the Newburgh–Beacon Ferry lot, on Water Street, and in the lot behind the theater (access via Carpenter Street). On weekdays, you may find a spot on Front Street.
Seating
Although purchasing an advance ticket guarantees you a seat, it doesn’t guarantee you a particular seat or group of seats—seating is first-come first-served.
The Downing has only 55 seats, so arrive early for the best selection. The screening room opens 30 minutes before showtime. Please don’t save seats for members of your party who have not yet purchased a ticket.
Accessibility
The Downing Film Center is handicapped accessible. If you need our lift and elevator, please let us know in advance. We also ask that you arrive 35–40 minutes before showtime so that we can assist you before the theater gets busy.
We also have assistive listening technology (headphones and closed captioning glasses). Please see our FAQ for details.