Sonya Chung is the author of the novels The Loved Ones (Relegation Books, 2016) and Long for This World (Scribner, 2010). She is a staff writer for the The Millions and founding editor of Bloom, and is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize nomination, the Charles Johnson Fiction Award, the Bronx Council on the Arts Writers’ Residency, a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, a Key West Literary Seminars residency, a Studios of Key West residency, and an Escape to Create residency. Sonya’s stories, reviews, & essays have appeared in The Threepenny Review, Tin House, The Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books, Short: An International Anthology, and This is The Place: Women Writing About Home, among others. Sonya has taught fiction writing at Columbia University, NYU, and Gotham Writers’ Workshop. She is the Director of Film Forum.

Film Forum

Film Forum began in 1970 as an alternative screening space for independent films, with 50 folding chairs, one projector and a $19,000 annual budget. Karen Cooper became director in 1972 and under her leadership, Film Forum moved downtown to the Vandam Theater in 1975. In 1980, Cooper led the construction of a twin cinema on Watts Street. In 1990, Film Forum’s current Houston Street cinema was built at a cost of $3.2 million. In 2018, Film Forum raised $5 million to renovate and expand its Houston Street cinema, upgrading the seating, legroom, and sightlines in all theaters and adding a new, 4th screen. In 2023, Cooper stepped down as Director and was succeeded by Deputy Director Sonya Chung.

We present two distinct, complementary film programs – NYC theatrical premieres of American independents and foreign art films, programmed by Cooper (Advisor to the Director as of 2023), Mike Maggiore, and Sonya Chung; and, since 1987, repertory selections including foreign and American classics, genre works, festivals and directors’ retrospectives, programmed by Bruce Goldstein. Our third and fourth screens are dedicated to extended runs of popular selections from both programs, as well as new films for longer engagements.

Film Forum is open 365 days a year, with as many as 250,000 annual admissions, nearly 500 seats, approximately 60 employees (of which half are full time), 6,500+ members and a $7 million operating budget. Approximately 80% of our budget is spent directly on programs. As a non-profit, we raise approximately 50% of our operating income. Public funders include: The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council for the Arts, and various NYC agencies including the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs. Private donors include individuals, foundations, and corporate entities. Additionally, our members contribute more than $500,000 annually. This allows us to take risks on emerging filmmakers and challenging films. Film Forum has a $6 million endowment, begun in 2000 with a $1.25 million gift from the Ford Foundation.

Film Forum is the only autonomous nonprofit cinema in New York City and one of the few in the U.S. The success of our distinctive position is evidenced by our over 50-year tenure, during which our programs and fiscal resources have grown steadily. Sadly, since the 1970s, dozens of NYC art-house theaters (and a great number throughout the U.S.) have closed their doors.

As a cinema of ideas, Film Forum is committed to presenting an international array of films that treat diverse social, political, historical and cultural realities. Unlike commercial cinemas that primarily “book” high-grossing, Hollywood films, Film Forum’s programs are thoughtfully selected, with attention to unique cinematic qualities, historical importance individually or within a genre and – particularly for documentaries – relevance to today’s world.

Elizabeth Howard

Elizabeth Howard is the Host of the Short Fuse Podcast.

Arts Fuse

The Arts Fuse was established in June, 2007 as a curated, independent online arts magazine dedicated to publishing in-depth criticism, along with high quality previews, interviews, and commentaries. The publication’s over 70 freelance critics (many of them with decades of experience) cover dance, film, food, literature, music, television, theater, video games, and visual arts. There is a robust readership for arts coverage that believes that culture matters.

Adam Kuper

Professor Adam Kuper is an anthropologist and public intellectual. He has held positions at a number of universities and is a recipient of the Huxley Medal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Kuper is the author or editor of 19 books and has published over 100 journal articles focusing on anthropological theory, the history of anthropology in the US and Britain, and southern African societies and cultures. He has made numerous appearances on BBC TV and radio, and reviewed regularly for the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Wall Street Journal.

The Museum of Other People

Published by Penguin Random House, in this deeply researched, immersive history, Adam Kuper tells the story of how foreign and prehistoric peoples and cultures were represented in Western museums of anthropology. Originally created as colonial enterprises, their halls were populated by displays of plundered art, artifacts, dioramas, bones, and relics. Kuper reveals the politics and struggles of trying to build these museums in Germany, France, and England in the mid-19th century, and the dramatic encounters between the very colorful and eccentric collectors, curators, political figures, and high members of the church who founded them. He also details the creation of contemporary museums and exhibitions, including the Smithsonian, the Harvard’s Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, and the famous 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago which was inspired by the Paris World Fair of 1889.

Listen to an excerpt from The Museum of Other People

Elizabeth Howard

The Short Fuse Podcasts, hosted and produced by Elizabeth Howard, are conversations with artists, writers, musicians, and others who have a lens on contemporary thought and stir us to seek change. With their art, their music, their performances, and their vision they lead us through the social and environmental transformations sweeping across the globe.

“Artists are here to disturb the peace.” James Baldwin.

The Short Fuse is distributed through the Arts Fuse, a journal of arts criticism and commentary.