Friday nights in Greenport now belong to the next generation of film lovers.
A new North Fork Arts Center Youth Advisory Board, formed this fall, has secured Theater 4 at 8:15 p.m. each Friday during the school year. The board curates films that local teens in grades 9–12 can attend for free, while the wider community can see the same titles all week for $10.
Executive Director Tony Spiridakis said the idea for the board sprang from a chance encounter with a high schooler who pressed him about the 2012 film Moonrise Kingdom. The veteran Hollywood screenwriter and producer was intrigued and amused.
“If a 15-year-old approaches me and talks to me about ‘Moonrise Kingdom,’ they’re already, in my book, the coolest 15-year-old on the planet. That’s one of my top 10 greatest films! I mean, it’s [director] Wes Anderson, for crying out loud. If she knows about him, what else does she know?”
“What’s your name?” he asked her.
“Sophie Heidemann,” came the response.
The idea of a film advisory board just for young people was born.
The four YAB members from Southold High School — founder Heidemann, Leone Bartolani, Nicholas Gianopulos and Nate Steinfeld — are already planning post-movie talkbacks, student shorts and, eventually, a teen-oriented Greenport film festival, with parent advisor Erika Wood Heidemann coordinating and Spiridakis covering the licensing fees for screening the films. Wood Heidemann said the goal is to eventually expand the advisory board to seven or nine students.
“I was a teenager out here,” said Spiridakis, “and I kind of feel like teenagers need to have a seat at the table.”
Spiridakis and NFAC creative director Shannon Goldman spent years restoring the former Greenport Theater into a four-screen hub for film, music and art. The youth advisory board is Spiridakis’ favorite project so far, he said.
“It’s literally the thing I’m most excited about. We’ve done a good job connecting with our seniors and adults — now we need to build a bridge to our high school kids.”
Heidemann brought in friends Bartolani and Gianopulos, and Spiridakis encouraged NFAC film projectionist Steinfeld, a former intern at the arts center, to join in.
The youth board receive a free annual membership to the Arts Center’s Film Club — a $125 value that normally includes discounts, birthday popcorn and special screenings. Teens who attend the movies and sign up for the Friday night club will also receive free NFAC Film Club memberships.
Spiridakis designed the program to have a broad appeal.
“It’s their night for free,” he said of local high school students, “but that film then plays all week for everyone else. So, it’s not just for them — it’s creating community awareness. If I’m an adult, I might want to see what these kids picked.”
Wood Heidemann said the Friday night show is open to all but only free for high school students.
“Anyone else who wants to come pays $10. We’re not excluding anyone, but it’s their night,” she said of the high schoolers.
The first films screened were crowd-pleasers with cult-classic status: the 1985 John Hughes indie hit The Breakfast Club, the 2004 Edgar Wright-directed zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead, and, naturally, John Carpenter’s 1978 slasher classic Halloween last Friday.
Next on the slate is the 1955 coming-of-age melodrama Rebel Without a Cause, starring James Dean and Natalie Wood — an indication of the board’s ambitions.
“I think it goes back to what our goal is,” said Gianopulos. “It’s to get more kids interested in films and the arts. A lot of kids my age, all they watch is TikTok. They’re not even consuming any art. And that’s a problem Tony wanted to fix.”
Here’s the schedule for the rest of the year:
Friday, Nov. 7, Rebel Without a Cause (1955, PG-13)
Friday Nov. 14, Paul Blart Mall Cop (2009, PG)
Friday Nov. 21 The Squid and the Whale (2005, R)
Friday, Nov. 28 Ordinary People (1980, R)
Friday, Dec. 5, Run Lola Run (German, 1998, R)
Friday Dec. 12, The Holdovers (2023, R)
Friday, Dec. 19, Christmas Vacation (1989, PG-13)
Friday, Dec. 26, Sleepless in Seattle (1993, PG)
Early education
Heidemann’s film education began early.
Cinema “was a big part of their lives,” she said of her parents, Wood Heidemann and her film archivist father Mark Heidemann. “And they really made it a big point to make it a big part of my life as well.”
As a small child, she was dazzled by the marriage of music and movies in 1964’s A Hard Day’s Night and other Beatles movies, as well as Singin’ in the Rain. “I loved that movie when I was like five years old.”
Bartolani, the son of an Italian-born pianist and an architect, grew up surrounded by art and film.
“When we came to America, I was like four, and they made a point to show me films,” he said. He doesn’t recall one defining moment, but he holds up Whiplash and Inception as touchstones, and said he has a great appreciation for older films.
“The farther back in time it is, the more emphasis I put on [a film], because of how much harder and how much more innovative of a thinker you had to be to do something.”
Gianopulos was 10 when movies first captured his imagination.
“Casablanca,” he said. “We watched it after Thanksgiving dinner, and I remember just being amazed by that movie.”
He said he was blown away by the film’s cinematography, and its “overall themes” stayed with him.
Steinfeld found his way through comedy, and now creates his own.
“I used to binge watch all those movies in the early 2000s like Anchorman [and] Dodgeball, and then … it kind of got me into making my own short films,” he said.
For Heidemann, part of the goal is educational.
“Even if people don’t like a movie, they get something out of it,” she said. “Sometimes it’s just the fact that you’ve seen it. You feel great when it comes up in class and you can say, ‘I know that one.’”
Media arts literacy
Spiridakis sees the teens’ project as the accumulation of what he calls “media arts literacy.
“There’s a media world out there,” he said. “The more well-equipped they are, the more chances they have of getting work. Media arts … is the backbone of our economy — Sony, Apple, Warner Bros., Amazon Prime, Comcast. That’s what drives so much of our economy.”
By giving the teens control of a theater, he said, “they’re programmers now. They’re curating films, managing schedules, creating events. They’re learning how cinema works.”
Steinfeld said that hands-on experience has changed how he looks at film.
“You take weeks writing a script, then you figure out props, casting, locations — it’s a whole process,” he said. “Even making a short film can take months. Once you see that, you appreciate how much goes into it.”
He’s especially drawn to comedy. “I feel like comedy has disappeared,” he said. “The last big comedy films were from the Will Ferrell era. I want to be part of the generation that brings it back.”
Asked how they persuade friends to show up for a 70-year-old movie on a Friday night, the students laughed.
“You don’t show Rebel Without a Cause first,” Bartolani said. “You start with The Breakfast Club — something they’ve heard of. You tell them, ‘It’s free, there’s pizza, just come.’ Then they see the quality, and they keep coming back.”
That gradual approach is key to the project’s success, according to Wood Heidemann.
“We want to sneak in some foreign films, some noir, some black-and-white,” she said. “We don’t want to turn kids away. It’s a process.”
For Spiridakis, that process began with a single conversation with a curious teenager.
“It didn’t become possible until I saw this really intense, wonderful 15-year-old giving me a little criticism about my programming … and from there, it just grew.”
He said he loves the idea of teenagers programming films that will interest senior citizens.
“I love that seniors can go and hang out with teenagers,” he said. “That’s always been my jam — intergenerational. They’re programming cinema for everyone.”
The students, meanwhile, are already thinking ahead. Heidemann hopes to host screenings of student-made shorts; Steinfeld wants to bring comedy culture back; Bartolani wants to host guest speakers and Gianopulos wants to turn the theater into “a place where kids can discover art.”
Spiridakis sees something even broader taking shape.
“Art isn’t a frivolity,” he said. “It’s a gross domestic product. It’s how we tell our stories, how we connect with one another. And these kids — they’re learning that now.”