Cinema Purgatorio

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Ray Privett

Ray Privett is Founder and President of Cinema Purgatorio LLC.  Based in midtown Manhattan, Cinema Purgatorio shares offices and a strategic alliance with film industry legend Richard Lorber's company Lorber HT Digital.

Cinema Purgatorio's clients and collaborators include:
  • rock band the Flaming Lips ("The greatest U.S. band today" - The Guardian) and Warner Brothers Records for public exhibition of their film Christmas on Mars: A Fantastical Film Freakout Featuring the Flaming Lips (70 plus cities, and counting);
  • Lorber HT Digital, Lorber Films, and Alive Mind Media for distribution label management (facilitating approximately 24 releases per year, on platforms including "theatrical," "semi-theatrical," educational, home video, and digital download);
  • New York City independent horror filmmaker and financier Larry Fessenden for projects including I Can See You, directed by Graham Reznick;
  • filmmaker Lech Majewski, who was hailed in 2006 with a rare, full, mid-career retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, and also had a specialized theatrical tour organized by International Film Circuit, followed by a DVD release of four titles through Kino International.
Privett worked for several years as Distribution Coordinator of Facets Video in Chicago.  In his era Facets' exclusive import and distribution output increased exponentially.  At Facets, Privett established and maintained Facets' ongoing DVD import line with ARTE France (Europe's leading public television channel and a major source of funding for European audiovisual production).  He also worked on the release of The Outskirts, a modern Russian classic directed and co-written by the late Petr Lutsik; Dream of Light (Quince Tree of the Sun), directed by Victor Erice of Spain (Best Film of the 90s, according to Film Comment); many of the breakthrough Iranian films from directors Abbas Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf; several titles from underground filmmaker James Fotopoulos of Chicago; Muhammad Ali the Greatest, directed by William Klein; Medea, from director Lars von Trier (after a script by Carl-Th. Dreyer); several projects with Amos Gitai of Israel and France; and numerous other independent American, Canadian, European, Middle Eastern, Chinese, and Latin American projects.

Privett left Facets in mid-2004, when he was hired as Programmer and General Manager of the Pioneer Theater in New York City.  At the Pioneer, he oversaw that theater’s period of most success.  He was a nearly constant presence at the Pioneer, making sure several thousand shows, configured into hundreds of distinct programs, actually went on and then were accounted for, from mid 2004 to early 2008.  In his era, thousands of articles about screenings appeared in the New York Times, Post, Press, Magazine, and Sun, and also the Village Voice, Time Out New York, Gothamist, the Reeler, on Fox News International, and in many, many other outlets.  Filmmakers and intellectuals who appeared at the Pioneer in that era included, among hundreds of others, Angelo Badalamenti, Michale Boganim, Douglas Buck, Larry Cohen, Larry Fessenden, Luis Guzman, Hal Hartley, Aaron Katz, John Landis, Malcolm MacDowell, Lech Majewski, Reverend Jen Miller, Bill Plympton, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Andrew W.K., S.T. VanAirsdale, and internet visionaries including Lawrence Lessig and the founders of Blip.tv and Rocketboom.com.

Privett founded Cinema Purgatorio LLC in late 2007.  In early 2008, he chose to leave the Pioneer, because he thought he could be more effective in film world activity as his own boss under Cinema Purgatorio, and to work on other performing arts related endeavors.  To facilitate some of that work, Cinema Purgatorio installed Cinema Purgatorio @ KGB / Kraine, a collapsible cinema that functions as an extension to a stage theater within a former speakeasy and Ukrainian-American Socialist Social club. 

Privett is author of Amos Gitai: Exile and Atonement, published in English by Cinema Purgatorio and in French by Editions Cinemaction / Le Septieme Art.  He has published in popular and scholarly journals including Millennium Film Journal, Cineaste, Senses of Cinema, KinoEye / Central Europe ReviewThe Reeler, International Documentary, Visual Anthropology Review, TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies, DOX: The Magazine of the European Documentary Network, and elsewhere.

Privett has been quoted or cited in outlets including the New York Times, the Guardian, Wired Magazine, the Reeler, the Chicago Reader, the Village Voice, AM New York, the New York Post, Variety, the Jewish Week, Fangoria, the New York Sun, НОВОЕ РУССКОЕ СЛОВО, Dziennik Związkowy, Nowy Dziennik, Moviemaker Magazine, New City Chicago, the Bergen Record, Twitchfilm.net, Washington Square News, Columbia Spectator, Video Business, indieWIRE, Video Store, and Salon.com.

He has served on juries at the Chicago International Film Festival, Dokfest: the Munich Documentary Festival, and the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Czech Republic).

Quotes about Cinema Purgatorio:

"Cinema Purgatorio has taken Christmas on Mars to places we never thought possible! And we dream big! Thanks for everything!"
- Scott Booker, Manager, the Flaming Lips

"[a] left-field distribution house."
- Wired Magazine

"...we’re gonna continue partnering with him because Ray is a great, hard worker. He has helped us on a lot of movies, and it’s time for us to team up in public instead of him just slaving away in the dark.”
- Larry Fessenden, Producer and Director, Head of Glass Eye Pix Studio

Archive of press coverage of
Privett's era at the Pioneer

Quotes about the Pioneer under Privett:

"Living proof that New York City still rocks. . . . . .the go-to place for young filmmakers whose movies are too wild and crazy. . . the Pioneer Theater has become something of a curator for the new generation of inexpensive, digital movies], presenting the best of these handmade films . . . their programming always picks talent that's worth watching. . . pearls grow from a speck of grit, and there are treasures aplenty down here among the shoestring budgets."
- Grady Hendrix, New York Sun
(quotes gathered from four separate articles)

"Whenever I can, I try to plug the Pioneer Theater in New York's East Village, which is doing the movie gods' work on earth."
- Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

"Things get a bit nuttier at places like [the] Pioneer Theater, which shows an utterly indefinable array of films."
- Seth Kugel, New York Times

"Ray Privett...did wonders as programmer for [the] Two Boots Pioneer Theater...."
- V.A. Musetto, NY Post

"Nobody in this small town is more supportive of local independent filmmakers than the Pioneer. Period."
- S.T. VanAirsdale, TheReeler.com

"[the] Pioneer Theater is a true trailblazer, going out on a limb every night to present the most eclectic selection of everything available on film (and video)."
- Andrew Aber, Village Voice "Best of NYC"

"Much more fun than the Sunshine or the IFC or the Angelika."
- New York Press "Best of New York"

"The Pioneer's programmers display a keen eye for genre flicks, strange indies, and other cult oddities that call to mind the midnight movies of the past."
- Tony Timpone, Fangoria Magazine

"The best little filmhouse in NYC!"
        - DreadCentral.com

Contact Ray Privett here


Selected writing:

Amos Gitaï:
Exile and Atonement

by Ray Privett

Amos Gitaï is the most well-known Israeli filmmaker of all time. This volume considers several films Gitaï directed while living in France during the 1980s, then two other films made after returning to live in Israel in the mid-1990s. The films include the "Exile" and "Golem" films (Esther, Berlin Jerusalem, Birth of a Golem, Golem: The Spirit of Exile, and Golem: The Petrified Garden), and the "Atonement" films (War Memories and Kippur). More.

Also published in French translation by Editions Cinémaction / Le Septième Art, as part of a collection edited by Lucie Dugas.

April Surprise
Essay about departure from the Pioneer, establishment of Cinema Purgatorio.

Sembène's Rainbow (The Reeler)
An appreciation of the late Senegalese filmmaker's work, especially Guelwaar (1992).

Clayton Patterson and the Tompkins Square Park Police Riot Tape (The Reeler)
About the Lower East Side documentarian and his coverage of one of modern New York City's most momentous events.

Resistance and Rebirth: Jancso Films Lead the Way in Major Hungarian Cinema Retrospective at Lincoln Center (The Reeler)
Article about Hungarian cinema.

Belarus: Europe's Last Dictatorship (Pioneering: The Pioneer Theater Blog)
Unabashed promotional material about Long Knives Night and Reporting from a Rabbit Hutch, two films directed by Belarussian dissident Victor Dashuk.

Super Twink World Premiere at the Pioneer (Pioneering: The Pioneer Theater Blog)
Recap of the Pioneer's premiere of this atrocious film, directed by Richard Christy and Sal the Stockbroker. Premiere in association with the Howard Stern show.

For God and Country (or maybe not): Jerzy Kawalerowciz Interview (Kinoeye)
Interview of the Polish filmmaker, mostly about Mother Joan of the Angels, Austeria, and Quo Vadis.

The Country of Movies: An Interview with Dusan Makavejev (Senses of Cinema)
Mostly about Man Is Not a Bird, Love Affair, Innocence Unprotected, W.R., Sweet Movie, and Gorilla Bathes at Noon.

The Strange Case of Noël Carroll (Senses of Cinema)
Interview of the controversial film philosopher, by Ray Privett and James Kreul. Biographical portrait, but also discussions of "sociological" film criticism, non-fiction film, the nature of horror, "medium specificity theory," "new media," etc.

A Cinema of Possibilities: Brian Frye Interview (Millennium Film Journal)
Interview of the avant-garde filmmaker and exhibitor, by Ray Privett and James Kreul.

Bodies in Motion. The Olympics on Film: An Historical Perspective (International Documentary 19.6, July / August 2000. Cover story.)
Cover story about exactly that, featuring works of Leni Riefenstahl, Kon Ichikawa, Bud Greenspan, and others, with some general notes on filming athletics.

Jean-Marie Téno’s Chief! and the Modernist Pan-African Cinema of Exile (Visual Anthropology Review)
Article about a movement, or perhaps tendency, in Pan-African cinema. Article only available in print edition, through purchase.

Professional Certifications

  • Fire Guard certified (F-94) in New York City by FDNY
  • Motion Picture Operator licensed by New York City Department of Consumer Affairs
  • Member, Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE)
  • Fluent in French; conversant in German and Spanish; can read Dutch, Italian, etc.

Now Playing

Arab Labor
An Alive Mind release


I Can See You
with "The Viewer" (in 3D)

"Graham Reznick arrives with a bang!"
- New York Times
"without a doubt one of the most intriguing and well-crafted low-budget horror films in recent memory."
- Fangoria


Long Knives Night
Reporting from a Rabbit Hole

"a brutal and brilliant bit of filmmaking."
- New York Press
"indelible portraits of power's absolute corruption...a primal howl of outrage."
- New York Times
- Order for libraries