Draft:Rockaway Film Festival

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The Rockaway Film Festival (RFF) is an annual film festival held in the Rockaway peninsula of Queens. Founded as a four-day festival in 2018 by Sam Fleischner, Courtney Muller, and Greg Stewart, it has subsequently expanded into a year-round series of events, offering a curated program of independent, documentary, and experimental cinema alongside live music and artist talks. The festival is known for its unique venues and single-screen format, showing only one film at a time. Rockaway Film Festival does not present competitive awards, instead emphasizing holistic programming, expanded cinema performances, live scores, installations, filmmaker conversations, and shared audience experiences.^[1]

Over the course of its history, the Festival has spotlighted over 750 artists from around the world and had over ten thousand attendees. It has presented live performances by musicians including Animal Collective, Rahill, Kyp Malone, Anand Wilder, Laraaji, Steve Gunn, and Laele Neal. The festival takes place at the end of every summer with an emphasis on affordability, with tickets always either $10 or free.^[1] Since 2021, the festival's primary venue has been the Arverne Cinema, a seasonal theater in Arverne, Queens, which serves as the festival's principal screening location and year-round programming hub, with an indoor and outdoor theater.

History

Founded in 2018 by filmmaker Sam Fleischner, Courtney Muller, and producer Greg Stewart, the first festival ran from October 18th to 21st and screened out of the Warehouse Cinema. It was the first movie theater in Rockaway in over twenty years.^[2][3]

The 2020 festival was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic from October 21st to 25th.^[4]

In 2021, the festival spearheaded the construction of the Arverne Cinema, an outdoor theater constructed by local builders and volunteers out of recycled material of the boardwalk that was destroyed during Hurricane Sandy.^[5] The theater was sponsored by Rockaway Brewing Co. in addition to funds provided by the Queens Council on the Arts, Blundstone USA, and other partners.^[6] The Arverne Cinema Inside was subsequently constructed next door through renovating the former warehouse home of Rockaway Brewing Co. into a screening room.

Also in 2021, the festival presented the first in-person public screening of Shaka King's Judas and the Black Messiah following its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.^[7]

Luke Lorentzen's A Still Small Voice made its East Coast premiere at the 2023 edition of the festival.^[8]

Prior to the 2025 edition, film social cataloging service Letterboxd interviewed Fleischner, Muller, and managing director Kathy Del Beccaro and showcased the festival alongside the Arverne community.^[9] That year, the festival hosted the New York premieres of Xander Robin's The Python Hunt and Hailey Gates' Atropia.^[10][11]

The 2026 program has included community events such as a shoreline cleanup of Dubos Point Wildlife Sanctuary^[12], kite-making workshops^[13], and free screenings inside the Arverne Cinema of FIFA World Cup matches.^[14]

References