Open Minds and Open Screenings: An Interview with Millennium Film Workshop - New York City

Millennium Film Workshop. Image courtesy of Zeina Abedrabo.

By COLLEEN DALUSONG August 10, 2025

Colleen Dalusong: Millennium Film Workshop has been a New York institution since the 1960s, can you talk about how you revitalized Millennium Film for the 2020s? 

Joe Wakeman: Millennium was founded in 1966 by Ken Jacobs, and Flo Jacobs, and a few other filmmakers. Under its second executive director, Howard Guttenplan, they opened up a permanent space on East Fourth Street in 1975, and that space continued to operate until 2013. For a number of reasons, things started to sort of fall apart around that time, they had incurred a certain amount of debt so they sold their archives to the MoMA to pay it off. For close to a decade, there was no funding, so Millennium Film Workshop as an entity became really quiet. I met the previous director, Joey Huertas, while he was hosting these open screenings out of rented classrooms, so I was showing my work there, and I was like, “Wow, this is cool. Can I do more?” But, then the pandemic happened and turned everything upside down, so I started doing a lot of online, live-streamed programming through our website and in our newsletter, and we attracted a new following. 

Anton Astudillo: I think the beauty of it is that everyone who comes here are all practicing artists. Whether they're photographers, filmmakers, performance artists, video artists, illustrators, they all have an active practice, and I think that makes the space really vibrant. We're not coming from an exclusively  academic or curatorial space, we all come from an art practice and we want to support that kind of work, so I find that to be really unique. 

JW: A lot of times, the people who gravitate to this space will find that they've found a home and want to get more involved beyond the level of being a patron. They’ll come in, volunteer, help us get the space ready for a show, do doors, sell tickets or drinks, things like that. To me, if you express the interest, you show up, and you take us seriously – we'll take you seriously.

AA: Exactly. It provides an opportunity for a number of different people with different backgrounds, we also get young artists or people in the early stages of their careers who start here and show their first work ever or program a show or a screening for the first time, and I don’t see that happening in many places. It is that energy that NYC exudes and you can see it very present at Millennium. I think a good example of this is what happens at the Open Screening every last Friday of the month.

JW: The Open Screening program is how most people tend to discover us. It's a simple concept: if you send us a film, we will show it, and we won't make you pay for it. The only restriction is that each filmmaker gets a 20 minute maximum because we don't have all the time in the universe, so what you end up getting are these extremely diverse programs of films from people working in totally different styles with so many different perspectives. I think that's so much more exciting than some festivals where you'll basically watch the same film over and over again. And one of the cool things about Open Screening is that it’s mostly local, but since it gets live-streamed online, there are also a lot of international films that get submitted. 

CD: Oh, really? I didn’t realize that international filmmakers were able to submit as well. 

JW: We get international submissions for every Open Screening, and we’ve made a lot of friends that way. There have been people from overseas whom I’ve gotten to know through submitting their work, and when they visit New York, we finally get to host them and meet in person. I’ve also traveled to other places to collaborate with filmmakers that I met through Open Screenings.

Millennium Film Workshop. Image courtesy of Anton Astudillo. 

AA: We’re actually going to bring some of the work that comes from the Millennium community and show it in Kingston soon. 

JW: Yeah, we're taking our show on the road. 

CD: Oh, wow that’s great. Besides offering local filmmakers a platform to showcase their new work, Millennium also has an equipment rental program. Can you tell us more about that? 

JW: That’s something that Millennium has always historically offered. The open screenings, the equipment rentals, the filmmaking workshops, all these things have always been a part of Millennium. 

AA: You know, once I ran into Su Friedrich and she told me that she still remembers coming to Millennium Film Workshop back in the 80s to cut her film on the Steenbeck. Access to equipment is one of the things that Millennium has always offered to filmmakers, especially independent and noncommercial filmmakers who don't have the budget to go to those extremely expensive rental houses. It’s really nice to have people come and rent some of our equipment just to experiment with things that they haven't been able to try yet. 

JW: We're constantly updating and upgrading, too. One of my secret talents is that I am a gear hustler, I have a good nose for figuring out where to source things. Last year I really prioritized getting a solid collection of 16 millimeter cameras and CRT monitors, but next I want to focus on sound equipment. 

AA: Yeah, it's been exciting for us because now we have these Eiki and 16mm projectors, so we’re able to have more film screenings and offer the community access to more equipment. These days, I see so many young people who are excited to shoot on film, which is really cool. I love that. 

JW: I think because of how digital our lives have become, people now desire something tangible. AI can make videos, but it can’t make a film. You can’t hold an AI film in your hand and say, “This is my art that I made, it has the touch of my human hands on this.” 

AA: To expand on what Joe is saying, being able to come into a physical space and have the opportunity to meet other people makes such a difference. People today tend to just watch things on their phones, and there’s so much that you can access online, so we’re always asking ourselves, “What can we offer as a film and video space compared to what could be seen on the Internet right now?” We don't think of it as a competition, we just think of Millennium Film as an alternative; and the alternative is that you can come here, sit down, experience an event with other people who are looking for the same, have a conversation, meet local or international artists who are visiting, and maybe get a new project started. It's very unique, where else can you find something this tangible in a city as busy as New York?

CD: Yeah, it’s like in video games where there's a ‘save point,’ you know? It’s great to have the security of knowing that if anyone ever wants to show a film or find someone new to collaborate with, they could just come here and find that. 

JW: Absolutely. The artist-run space is kind of a vanishing phenomenon. You read a lot about the abundance of artist-run spaces in the 70s or 80s, and how it was really key to a lot of important New York initiatives like ABC No Rio, but sometimes artist-run spaces after a historical period become institutionalized or they take on these sort of museum modes. We really try to maintain this idea that this is a space where artists are teaching other artists, sharing space with other artists, creating opportunities for other artists, and meeting new people and collaborating and just synthesizing a continued art practice across the board. 

Millennium Film Workshop. Image courtesy of Zeina Abedrabo.

AA: I think everyone who comes to Millennium can see that this is a space that provides something that's not provided anywhere else, so people really value that. Overall, the love from the community is the reason why we're still here in 2025. People tell me, “I love coming to Millennium, every week there’s something new,” because so many artists have come into this space, and it’s really exciting to see the range of work. At the end of the day, all you want to do as an artist is be able to show your work and have that dialogue with an engaged audience. 

CD: I get the sense that you guys are very free-flowing and open to collaborating on a wide variety of programs here. 

JW: We're pretty open-minded. There's only ever been two or three programs where I've been like, “No, I don't want to do that.” But like I said, if you take us seriously, we'll take you seriously. If you have a proposal and you're serious about it and it sounds good, then why not? 

AA: And I think that speaks to how serious people in New York are about art. Granted, everyone has a different way to do things, and the challenge is always figuring out how to work with that. Overall, it just shows that people here are very passionate, on both the artist side and the curatorial side. They love what they're doing and they're putting all that love into the work and you can see it. This passion and energy is what keeps Millennium alive. WM