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Short Film Premiere: “Afterimage” Explores Memories of Moviegoing in Ridgewood, Queens
Last week, Filmmaker published my Spring 2026 print issue report on the crop of communal cinema offerings in Ridgewood, Queens. There’s Low Cinema, co-founded by John Wilson and the first theater to open in the neighborhood in nearly 100 years; Music Movie Mondays, curated by Shannon Wiedemeyer at the bar/venue Cassette; Ridgewood Community Cinema, co-created by Ali Jaffery with regular screenings hosted at Stone Circle Theater and Ridgewood Commons; UnionDocs, a non-fiction film center and theater that relocated from Williamsburg to Ridgewood; and the recently-shuttered Seneca Cinema, which allowed attendees to submit ranked-choice ballots to vote on the evening’s movie pick.
And a few other ventures have since appeared on my radar: Ridgewood Essential Cinema, hosted at a local resident’s apartment (and sometimes Spectacle in Williamsburg and The Filmmaker’s Cooperative in Manhattan), as well as Big Sister Film Club, a brand new offering that screens “under appreciated and DIY documentaries” every other Monday in the neighborhood.
But there’s one local microcinema that I left out of my sprawling scene report, in part because it was already wonderfully detailed in “Afterimage,” a short film by co-directors Andrew Thomas and Pia Rios that I was made aware of through UnionDocs. Under the Seneca Avenue M train, James Torres—one half of the artist duo known as the Bushwick Twins—has recreated the marquee that once graced the facade of Myrtle Avenue’s Ridgewood Theater (which has since been gutted and turned into a PureGym, known for its dystopian tube entrances). The film demonstrates how James and other locals are preserving the legacy of the bygone establishment, which used to be one of the few theaters for those living between Ridgewood and Bushwick. (Indeed, Steven Gonzalez, who grew up in Bushwick and shot original photos for my piece, has many fond memories of the theater’s sticky floors and early aughts studio fare.)
A statement written by Thomas and Rios elaborates further on the crafting of “Afterimage”:
“Afterimage” was developed as part of the UnionDocs CoLab Studio program during the organization’s relocation to Ridgewood. Our assignment was to look for stories along the border between Queens and Brooklyn. Even though we spent time walking the area, nothing along the official border felt like a story. So we decided to talk with residents, both in person and in Facebook groups, to get their ideas of where and what the border is. This is how we came to the Ridgewood Theater. Residents on both sides pointed to it as something like the dividing line between each neighborhood.
Seeing the space in person gave the project a new layer. The building in its current state felt like a material reflection of the changes unfolding across both neighborhoods: gentrification. At the same time, this process is not disconnected from the idea of borders: Groups of people live side by side without necessarily sharing the same spaces, references, or sense of belonging.
On a personal level, we love movies, and like many people in our generation, we have foundational memories tied to cinemas. The theaters we grew up with, however, were very different from these older spaces, and researching and seeing images of them felt like stepping into another world—one that seemed fitting to the ethereal magic of movies.
Maybe for this reason, we chose not to center the film on the theater’s history. But if you are curious to know more, the photographer Matt Lambros has an entry on it in his project After the Final Curtain, from which we were fortunate to include select images. Our focus instead is on the emotional dimension, what it means to lose a third space.
And of course, the film ultimately took shape through our collaboration with James. His presence pushed the film further than we had initially imagined. He is both charismatic and deeply invested in his community. The ending, we hope, reflects that energy.
Watch the 12-minute short film above, with many thanks to the filmmakers and UnionDocs for their collaboration. A concise synopsis of the film can also be found below:
“Afterimage” is a short documentary about memory and place. Centered around the Ridgewood Theater—a neighborhood cinema that opened in 1916 and closed abruptly in 2008—the film brings together former residents who have since left the city and James, a lifelong local who still calls the neighborhood home. Through their voices, Afterimage explores what it means to lose a space that once held a community together.
