Back in 2011 I was approached by a friend, Peter, who owned a bar in Park Slope called The Fifth Estate. Don’t look for it, as the business has long been bought and sold. It had been the Royale before I got there; I had visited it in that era a few times. Then Peter bought it and called it The Fifth Estate. That’s where a few of us local musicians began to play there on a semi-regular basis. But Peter approached me at some point and told me he installed a projector and screen in the back room. He said we could show films. Without hesitation I thought film series, I could program a film series. I’m not sure I thought the mission would be to champion independent filmmakers but that’s what ensued.
Peter agree that a weekly series on Sunday afternoons when the bar was quiet, would be the ideal time. And I began to reach out to local filmmaker friends to see if they could bring films. The timing couldn’t be better as my friends Michael Galinsky & Suki Hawley were just finishing their documentary “Battle for Brooklyn” and wanted to have a feedback screening for select folks. So, on Sunday, February 13th at 6PM the Filmwax Film Series was born.
Where did the name Filmwax come from? That’s a question to which there may not be a clear or satisfying answer. I remember kicking around a name and I remember thinking to myself that the name should “pop”. It should have a fun and attention getting name. And I believe that the arbitrary name Filmwax just came to mind. I have no idea what it was supposed to mean. I was able to retro-fit a potential meaning or two. The main idea of the film series was to engage people and so the Q&A that followed was the bread and butter of the event. It didn’t really make sense for me to screen a film without having a filmmaker present.
