(photo: Cassidy Dawn Graves)

Emelyn Stuart has run The Ocktober Film Festival, a showcase of emerging filmmakers, since 2013. Each year, she’s rented venues for it. One year, she recalls the lights shutting off; they had run over their allotted rental time, and there were no exceptions. “I said to myself, I will never, never, never have to go through this again,” she says. “I will find a home for this festival, and [the filmmakers] will be able to stay as long as they want, and they will be able to talk about their films for as long as they need, and I’m not going to be rushing them.” She found that home in Stuart Cinema and Cafe, her own space in Greenpoint she opened at the start of September alongside Chief Operations Officer Carl Gilbert Jr. More →