In what organizers believe could be a first of its kind, the West Newton Cinema will host a series of upcoming documentaries with an aim toward connecting filmmakers with donors. The first screening in the Producers’ Circle series will take place Thursday with the Emmy Award-winning director Stephen Maing presenting footage from his next film, “The Great Experiment.”
Created by Anne Marie Stein, a longtime Boston-area champion of independent film, and sponsored by the West Newton Cinema Foundation, the nonprofit that organized to rescue the vintage cinema in 2022, the series is designed to attract potential investors, from financial players to the ordinary citizens who might otherwise support a crowdfunding campaign. The series continues in the spring with new works-in-progress from Boston-based filmmakers James Rutenbeck (“A Reckoning in Boston,” 2021) and Franziska Blome (“The Wall,” 2010).
“This is a fantastic idea,” said Maing, whose most recent film, “Union” (with co-director Brett Story), about the effort to unionize an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island, has been shortlisted for an Academy Award.
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“The way that film funding has traditionally worked is hierarchical. We’re shouting up at the tower, trying to get the attention of these gatekeepers.”
“Nobody’s really done this,” said Stein. “Particularly in this time, when journalism and media are undergoing a sea change, helping to support independent voices is critical.”
Stein served as executive director for the Boston Film/Video Foundation until 2001. She hired Maing there after he graduated from Boston University, and the two have remained close.
J.B. Sloan became a board member of the West Newton Cinema Foundation after requesting a lawn sign to support the campaign to save the theater.
“One thing led to another,” said Sloan, who grew up in Los Angeles.
With specialty series such as the Producers’ Circle and Ty Burr’s Movie Club (hosted by the former Globe film critic), the foundation hopes to “bring interesting films to the community,” Sloan said. “But it’s more about building community through film.”
“The Great Experiment,” according to Maing and his co-director Eric Daniel Metzgar, will be “an ambitious cinematic time capsule of one of the most volatile and perplexing eras of American history”: the first Trump presidency.
“It’s a film that asks us to see each other, but most importantly see ourselves, and hear how we sound when talk to each other,” Maing explained. He agreed with Stein’s assessment that the timing seemed right to showcase this particular project to kick off the series.
“The next four years will be a work-in-progress for everyone,” he said.
James Sullivan can be reached at jamesgsullivan@gmail.com.
