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Cinéma Du Cashiers Begins at BAM This Week—Watch an Exclusive Promo by David Cardoza
As we reported last week, the NYC-based, cinema worker-centric zine Cashiers Du Cinéma has curated a 10-film program at Brooklyn’s BAM Cinema that spotlights the oft-unappreciated labor of front of house theater staff. Today, filmmaker David Cardoza shares an exclusive promo for our readers that stars Bill Heidbreder, a NY writer/critic and subject of the 2002 documentary Cinemania.
The promo features Heidbreder playing a character named Terry. He dons a movie usher’s red vest, black sunglasses and a microphone headset as he implores commuters in the 6th Ave subway tunnel to check out the BAM series, which is entitled Cinéma Du Cashiers and runs from February 13-19.
“You might recognize me—I’m the one who makes the popcorn,” Heidbreder beams at bemused passerby as he hands out flyers designed by Cardoza and Dan Welch, co-editors of Cashiers. “And I sweep the floor—I’m a theater worker.”
The minutiae of the job is certainly a focus of several of the films programmed in the series, including The Projectionist (1970), Murmur of Youth (1997) and The Smallest Show on Earth (1957). Several films will also be accompanied by readings from Cashiers contributors: A.T. Pratt will present before the cineplex slasher Blood Theater on February 13; Josh Bayer will speak ahead of appropriate V-Day pick Mary Jane’s Not a Virgin Anymore; Katie Lane will introduce Simone Barbès or Virtue on February 15; and J. Malzone will close the series out with his riveting “movie theater bathroom dissertation” on February 19.
“Nobody works harder than me for cinema,” Heidbreder concludes. “I’m the face of the movies.” Considering that he also stars in Cardoza’s 2025 short Life in the Cage, which will screen ahead of Bette Gordon’s Variety (1983), it would appear that I can’t argue with that!
