TikTok is undergoing another significant restructuring, this time merging its Core Product division with its Trust & Safety unit. The move is designed to unify product development with safety oversight, ensuring that innovation and user protection are more closely connected. Leadership believes this will help the platform move faster in building the next generation of safety technology.
As part of the shake-up, several executive roles have shifted. Adam Presser, previously head of Operations and Trust & Safety, has been promoted to General Manager of TikTok USDS, the company’s independent entity responsible for U.S. data security and national security compliance. Andy Bonillo, who formerly ran TikTok USDS and played a role in establishing its framework, will now serve as Senior Advisor reporting directly to Presser. Sandeep Grover will step in as Global Head of Trust & Safety, taking over responsibility for platform integrity across international markets. Jenny Zi will lead TikTok LIVE, overseeing both the growth and security of the platform’s live-streaming feature.
By integrating the product and safety organizations, TikTok aims to streamline its operations and improve coordination between feature rollouts and safety mechanisms. According to an internal memo, the company believes this structural change will allow it to “move faster as we develop the next generation of safety technology.”
The timing of this reorganization is critical. TikTok continues to face scrutiny in the United States, where regulators remain concerned over national security and data privacy. The platform has been granted another extension to remain operational, with the new deadline now set for September 17. With political uncertainty looming, TikTok is accelerating internal changes to strengthen trust and regulatory compliance.
This merger could mark a turning point for TikTok. By bringing product and safety leadership under one roof, the company may be able to deliver stronger protections while continuing to innovate. Still, the ultimate test lies ahead — proving to regulators and users alike that TikTok can balance growth, creativity, and safety in a highly challenging environment.
A lunch guest at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in Madison Square at the turn of the 20th century could’ve ordered their oysters however they desired. The menu offered the supposed aphrodisiac in virtually every way it could conceivably be prepared: Raw, stewed, fried, broiled, Baltimore broiled, cocktail, steamed, Boston stewed, box stewed, cream broiled, roasted on shell, roasted on toast, a la poulette…
In a city of pizza, halal, bagels and Michelin stars, the oyster’s special place in New York gastronomy may seem an afterthought today. But not long ago it was ubiquitous as lamb over rice or a summer hot dog in the park. In the late 1800s, Delmonico’s restaurant was serving local oysters on its dinner menu. In colonial times, locals were pulling enormous oysters from the muck of Gowanus creek to be canned, pickled with allspice, vinegar, and nutmeg, and exported throughout the colonies. Also on Delmonico’s dinner menu: a stew of terrapin meat (a small marsh turtle) simmered with cream and Madeira wine. It was among the historic restaurant’s priciest dishes, costing what today would have been $75. According to New York Public Library’s “What’s on the menu” project, a more traditional Lenape-style terrapin, which is roasted over an open fire, was a cheaper alternative that was once common in the city’s taverns.
Two perhaps bizarre sources of protein by today’s standards, the terrapin and the oyster earned their place on the menus of the city’s most exclusive restaurants through sheer abundance. Long before the tangle of cranes, bridges, towers and container ports clogged the horizon, New York Harbor was a lush estuarine paradise. The story of Henry Hudson’s first sighting of New York Harbor in 1609 is well known: Upon entering the bay in his ship, the Half Moon, he saw breaching whales, otters, enormous schools of fish, rays, turtles, and tens of millions of oysters arranged in vast, stony oyster reefs. They were huge, some up to a foot long, and so plentiful they could be plucked like fruit from the shallow brackish water.
The Lenape had done this for thousands of years. Resource-wise, they were maybe the richest of North America’s First Peoples. They grew corn, beans, and squash from Mesoamerica. They picked wild fruits and berries from the lush deciduous forest of their Northeast woodland home. They collected eggs, nuts and acorns, and hunted forest animals for meat. They spearfished for eel, herring and bony fishes of all sorts. And of course they harvested the oyster beds to their stomachs’ content. There were 220,000 acres of oyster beds in New York waters at the time of Hudson’s arrival, which, by some estimates, constituted half of all the oysters on planet Earth.
But the abundance was short-lived. Colonization brought about rapid industrialization and drove nearly all the Lenape from their ancestral homelands. Yet native traditions endured, oyster-eating among them. New York’s population exploded, breaking 100,000 by the early 1800s, and everyone, it seemed, was addicted to oysters.
In the book, “Gowanus: Brooklyn’s Curious Canal,” by Joseph Alexiou, a Dutch missionary named Jasper Danckaerts describes pulling giant oysters from the Gowanus Creek. The oysters are “large and full, some of them not less than a foot long, and they grow sometimes ten, twelve and sixteen together” Oyster stalls and taverns began popping up everywhere. They made their way into the cityscape. Trinity Church was built with a paste of crushed oyster shells. Pearl Street owes its name to them. They were early New York City’s preferred street food. Mark Kurlansky details this in his 2006 book, “The Big Oyster”: “Before the 20th century, when people thought of New York, they thought of oysters,” he wrote. “This is what New York was to the world—a great oceangoing port where people ate succulent local oysters from their harbor.”
This, of course, was unsustainable. By the early 1900s, the shellfish had gone scarce. Nearly a billion oysters were being harvested from New York waters each year. Meanwhile, the oysters that remained were sick with pollution. The last New York oyster beds were closed in the 1920s. Now, the Gowanus is filled not with oysters but foul smelling “black mayonnaise.”
Under the relentless forces of capitalism and industrialization, the Lenape were dispossessed of their waters and the waters of their oysters. Terrapins, too, have been listed as “vulnerable” to extinction by the IUCN. But there’s hope for New York’s oyster and turtle lovers. Terrapins have been making a comeback. In 2011, dozens of the reptiles migrating from Jamaica Bay caused delays at JFK. And oysters have once again found a friend among humans. The Billion Oyster Project has restored some 150 million oysters to New York waters to help prevent flooding and erosion. In 2018, a group called the River Project found an oyster that was 8.6 inches long and nearly two pounds, the largest recovered in more than a century. Although it may be another century before New York’s oysters are edible again.
Get ready to laugh! Blackbird Brooklyn is turning up the volume with an unforgettable Comedy Night featuring some of NYC’s most exciting rising stars. Expect big laughs, signature cocktails, and exquisite ambience—all wrapped into one elevated evening.
Anthony Santino [@anthonysantino] – With razor-sharp wit and rapid-fire storytelling, Anthony’s high-energy delivery takes over the room from the very first punchline.
Liam Dalton [@liamdaltonlive] – A crowd favorite, Liam’s observational humor and down-to-earth charm strike the perfect balance between clever and relatable.
John Kennedy [@johnhenrykennedy] – Unpredictable, smart, and effortlessly funny, John’s unique voice and magnetic stage presence make him a must-see.
The show kicks off at 7 PM, but doors open at 6:30 PM—come early to get your table, sip a signature cocktail, and enjoy the Blackbird atmosphere with friends and family.
“We’re excited to bring the energy of NYC comedy to this influential part of Brooklyn,” said Nik Patel, owner of 42 Hotel. “It’s the perfect setting for a night of pure fun, laughter, and connection.”
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Event Details
• Venue: Blackbird Brooklyn, The 42 Hotel – 426 S 5th St, Brooklyn, NY 11211
• Date: Wednesday, August 21st
• Time: Doors at 6:30 PM, show starts at 7 PM
• Three Ticket Packages Available for Purchase:
◦ $10 – General Admission
◦ $18 – General Admission & 1 Signature Cocktail
◦ $28 – General Admission Admission & 1 Signature Cocktail & Meal Item
Follow @blackbirdbklyn and the comedians for updates, sneak peeks, and more.
Whether you’re a comedy fan or just looking for a fresh night out, Comedy Night at Blackbird Brooklyn promises an unforgettable experience—delicacy captured in both food and laughter.
Maison Provence, the beloved French restaurant nestled in the heart of Williamsburg, is adding some extra flair to the middle of your week with the launch of two new weekday promotions: Ladies Night Rendezvous and Monsieur’s Night.
Every Tuesday, Maison Provence invites guests to enjoy Ladies Night Rendezvous, where women can sip on $1 prosecco shots with the purchase of any entrée. Whether you’re catching up with friends over coq au vin or enjoying a solo moment with a plate of duck confit, the bubbles are just a dollar away.
Then on Wednesdays, it’s time for the gentlemen to take the spotlight with Monsieur’s Night. With any entrée order, guests can enjoy a crisp, cold beer for just $1, perfect for pairing with the restaurant’s signature Duck Breast and Mushroom Fettuccine and Chicken Lemon Sausage Penne.
Chef and owner Dantonio Lolo, known for blending classic French cuisine with a warm, neighborhood feel, says the new promotions are all about creating community.
“Maison Provence has always been a place for people to gather and savor life,” said Lolo. “With these new weekday specials, we’re inviting our neighbors to make midweek feel just a little more like Paris — joyful, relaxed, and full of flavor.”
Maison Provence has quickly become a Williamsburg favorite for its cozy ambiance, attentive service, and authentic French menu. The new Ladies Night Rendezvous and Monsieur’s Night promotions add even more reason to stop by.=
Whether you’re planning a date night, meeting friends, or just in the mood for French comfort food and a great drink deal, Maison Provence now has your Tuesday and Wednesday evenings covered.
Maison Provence, a popular French restaurant in Williamsburg, just announced a special 3-Course Restaurant Week deal.
Guests can enjoy one small Provencal appetizer, one savory crepe, and one sweet crepe for onle $29 during restaurant week(s), Monday, July 21, through Sunday, August 17.
Maison Provence is a Brooklyn restaurant inspired by the flavors and charm of the South of France, and encompasses the creative vision and efforts of Chef Dantonio Lolo – who was born and raised in Nice, France.
Chef Lolo’s famous savory crepes include the Crepe Normandie, filled with creamy Chicken and muschroom sauteed with sauvignon wine, Swiss cheese, and parsley, and the Crepe Poulette, loaded with mussels, shrimp, Sauvignon white wine, onion, garlic, Swiss cheese, parsley. Lolo’s famous sweet crepe options include the Nutella Crepe and many more!
“We want guests at Maison Provence to leave feeling like they’ve had a little escape to the French Riviera,” Chef Lolo said. “Restaurant Week is a great chance to share the heart of Southern French cuisine.”
Maison Provence is offering their three-course menu for $29 Tuesday to Thursday evenings only.
Maison Provence is located at 52 Havemeyer St. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Maison Provence, a beloved local gem, has just unveiled its latest culinary creation: the Merguez Sausage Sandwich. Available every Friday through Sunday during brunch and lunch, this bold new offering delivers a vibrant blend of flavors that promises to become a Brooklyn favorite.
Nestled in a crisp French baguette, the handcrafted sandwich features spicy merguez sausage paired with sautéed red and green peppers and fragrant garlic. The savory heat is balanced by peppery arugula and perfectly crispy fries tucked inside, then drizzled with harissa mayonnaise for a creamy, smoky kick. Each bite offers a symphony of textures—from crunchy to tender—making it a satisfying midday treat.
“Our community’s support means everything to us,” says chef-owner Dan Antonio Lolo. “I’m truly grateful for the love we receive every day. Bringing a fresh, flavorful sandwich like this to our menu is our way of giving back.”
Ahmed Samir, world champion boxer and patron of Maison Provence, echoes that sentiment: “My favorite Brooklyn sandwich? Hands-down Maison Provence’s merguez sausage sandwich. It’s got the perfect spice, the baguette is crisp, and that harissa mayo just ties it all together.”
Available only Friday through Sunday, Maison Provence’s latest offering is a must-try for locals seeking bold, comfort-food brunch fare with a gourmet twist.
Maison Provence is located at 52 Havemeyer St. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NYC.
Williamsburg’s best kept secret is a luxe new event space named Blackbird, located inside the chic 42 Hotel at 426 S 5th St..
BlackBird is a globally inspired gastropub and lounge that blends bold flavors, an industrial modern decor, and a warm Brooklyn soul. Whether you’re stopping in for breakfast, brunch, dinner, or drinks, this all-day concept offers an experience that’s anything but ordinary.
At the heart of BlackBird is Chef Eric LeVine, a Food Network Celebrity Chef and proud Brooklyn native whose story is as remarkable as his food. Having battled and beaten cancer six times, Chef LeVine brings a fierce passion and creativity to the kitchen.
Expect thoughtfully sourced ingredients, inventive dishes, and a full bar serving expertly crafted cocktails, local brews, and curated wines all in a space that’s as welcoming as it’s stylish. From the Roasted Acorn Squash with brussels sprouts and corn sauce to the Braised Short Ravioli in a rich mushroom demi, each dish blends comfort with global inspiration. The rest of the menu follows with a variety of hand-made pastas and seafood dishes to bold, street-style tacos, thoughtfully crafted to pair with signature cocktails and a curated wine list.
From the warm glow of ambient lighting to the relaxed yet refined atmosphere, BlackBird invites guests to unwind, indulge, and party the night away. Whether you’re meeting friends for happy hour or settling in for a memorable meal, every visit delivers a balance of comfort, creativity, and Brooklyn charm.
Host your next celebration at BlackBird. With its prime Williamsburg location, inviting ambiance, and unforgettable food and drink, BlackBird is the ideal setting for private events, intimate gatherings, and holiday parties.
Book by August to receive 10% off your holiday celebration! Call 718-493-4242 or email info@blackbirdbklyn.com to reserve your date.
This Sunday, July 13th, Maison Provence in Williamsburg is transforming its cozy Brooklyn corner into a slice of the South of France for a Bastille Day celebration you won’t want to miss.
Get ready for a fun and festive French street party, complete with grilled merguez sausage sandwiches, ice-cold Kronenbourg beer, and crisp AVAL cider to keep you cool and satisfied.
A French DJ will be spinning all day, bringing high-energy Nice vibes to the heart of Brooklyn. Relax in lounge chairs or have a dance-off on our patio. Feeling competitive? You might just find yourself in the middle of a spontaneous pétanque ( bocce ball) showdown.
“No matter where you’re from, Bastille Day is a chance to come together and enjoy good food, music, and company,” says Chef Dantonio Lolo, owner of Maison Provence.
📍 Maison Provence – 55 Havemeyer St. Williamsburg, Brooklyn
🗓 Sunday, July 13th 12-10:30PM
🇫🇷 Bring your dancing shoes
In the wake of Zohran Mamdani’s win in the Democratic mayoral primary this week, we’re reposting the Star’s roundtable with him from March. While many then considered him a long shot, all of the components — the catchy (albeit ambitious) platform, social media savvy, and relentlessly optimistic vision for the city — were already on display during our wide-ranging conversation. Read on for insight into how the state rep approached his campaign, and what the past suggests about his ability to make his viral ideas a reality. (Plus: miscellanea about his early love of journalism, cricket skills, and a 2017 race “that changed my life.”)
If state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani becomes mayor this November, the decisive moment may have come years earlier, over a meal at King of Falafel in 2021.
But first, some context. Growing up, Mamdani had friends whose dads were living through a “crisis that everyone seemed to understand, but no one did anything about.” They were New York taxi drivers, and by the mid-2000s three forces had conspired to burden them with enormous debts: first, the Bloomberg administration inflated the price of medallions, from $200,000 in 2002 to upwards of $1,000,000 in 2014, to generate more revenue.
Soon after, a flood of competition from Uber and Lyft diluted the medallions’ value even as their cost rose. To cap it all off, predatory lenders who had been barred from the housing market swooped in to offer cabbies, 94% of whom are immigrants, loans that would entrap them even further. By 2021, the average driver was $550,000 in the red, and suicide rates had skyrocketed. “I’m going to be enslaved for the rest of my life,” NBC quoted one medallion owner as saying. “[It’s] not only that I will never be able to pay it off — my kids will never be able to pay it off.”
If you lived in Astoria or Long Island City in 2020, you probably received a mailer from Mamdani with a bold promise: if elected to the state assembly, he would cancel excessive taxi medallion debt. It was the sort of splashy proposal that politicians often bandy about, and it worked — his campaign was successful. So a year later, when Mayor Bill de Blasio put forward a plan to earmark $500 million for debt relief, it could have been a victory lap, a box checked.
Instead, Mamdani pressed de Blasio on the details, and began meeting with the taxi drivers’ union, NYTWA, which said the mayor’s proposal was mostly cosmetic. These conversations culminated in 45 days of consecutive protests outside City Hall, at which Mamdani was arrested for civil disobedience, followed by a joint 15-day hunger strike with five other lawmakers that forced the city, against all odds, to accept the taxi drivers’ demands. Though problems with lenders remain, some 2,000 drivers have seen their debts reduced to $200,000 through the resulting deal.
Mamdani shows off some new merch during his visit to the Star’s newsroom.
During the Star’s recent roundtable with Mamdani, he was quick to critique former Governor Andrew Cuomo, the current mayoral frontrunner, saying that “[his] early strength in polls is more a reflection of the mythology of [Cuomo], of nostalgia for his press conferences, than of an actual inspection of his record.” But politics is as much about myths as it is policy, and Mamdani’s fight against medallion debt is one such myth — a story that he will likely tell and retell in the lead-up to the election. The drama of the hunger strike captures his broad pitch to voters, which is that he, unlike both Cuomo and Mayor Eric Adams, is in tune with the struggles of working class New Yorkers and willing to put himself on the line for them.
But just as instructive as the dramatic finale is a quieter episode — after Mamdani questioned de Blasio and before the protests began — when he met Senator Chuck Schumer for lunch at Astoria’s King of Falafel. Once they’d finished eating, Mamdani asked Schumer if he’d take a ride with a cabbie named Richard Chow whose brother, a driver laden with debt, had died of suicide, and who himself had hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay off from loans he took to buy his medallion. Schumer agreed. Based on that experience, Mamdani said, the senator joined the push for debt relief and bartered with the mayor’s office, a major factor in the eventual deal.
“There’s a sadness in knowing that every time you finish a case, there will be another case and a different name, a different person, different specifics.” – on his time as a foreclosure counselor.
Four years later, much has changed. Mamdani, whose association with the smaller Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) party has isolated him in Albany, has ridden similarly attention-grabbing promises on social media — free buses, frozen rents, city-owned grocery stores — to go from an upset candidate for mayor to second in the polls, chasing only Cuomo. Last fall, fellow socialists including Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher were saying that his campaign “could be ruinous,” playing spoiler to other progressives with a more realistic shot; now even the New York Post, leery of the DSA, considers him “a serious contender.”
Mamdani, 33, grew up in both Uganda and South Africa before moving to New York at age seven, when his father accepted a teaching job at Columbia University. He went to middle school in Morningside Heights, right by the university, and attended Bronx High School of Science, where he fell in love with journalism. He was also passionate about sports: he captained the soccer team, and co-founded Bronx Science’s cricket team. (To this day, Mamdani is an ardent fan of the soccer team Arsenal — his uncle inducted him into the ranks when he was eight, and he’s been a supporter ever since. His current favorite player is Martin Odegaard, whom he calls the “conductor of the team,” while his childhood pick was Thierry Henry.)
After majoring in Africana Studies at Bowdoin College, Mamdani cut his teeth as an organizer for Change Corps, a precursor to NYPIRG that billed itself as a “training ground for activists.” He ran phone banks for vulnerable senate Democrats out of Seattle, Houston, and lastly Denver, where he tried to unionize with fellow organizers before leaving amid mass firings that ensued. Following a stint in the music and film industries — including a single called “Nani,”released under the pseudonym “Mr. Cardamom,” that received a New York Times write-up— Mamdani knocked on doors for city council candidate Ali Najmi in 2015, and started to “to get a sense of [his] place in the world of local politics.” Yet it was the next race he worked on, a 2017 city council bid by Lutheran minister Khader El-Yateem in South Brooklyn, that set him on his current path.
“That was the campaign that changed my life,” said Mamdani. “I always knew I was a New Yorker. [But] I didn’t know how my politics fit into New York City, and here was this Palestinian man who was vocal in his support for universal human rights, and tying it also to the fight for a more affordable city for working class people, fighting back against corporate interests.”
Mamdani briefly left politics in 2018, to work as a foreclosure-prevention counselor in Jackson Heights and Richmond Hill. The ever-present issue while canvassing had been housing, and this job seemed like a way to tackle those problems directly. “There’s a sadness in knowing that every time you finish a case, there will be another case and a different name, a different person, different specifics,” recalled Mamdani. Still, he was proud that as the only counselor at his organization who spoke Hindi and Urdu, he was able to reach people who weren’t aware that a lien was about to be placed on their home, and help them negotiate with lenders.
At the roundtable, Mamdani repeatedly said that “politics shouldn’t require translation,” a soundbite he’s returned to throughout the nascent mayoral race. The assemblyman’s experience as a housing counselor helps explain why that principle is meaningful to him — and his current campaign’s heavy focus on social media, racking up about 7 million views to date across all platforms, can be seen as an extension of that ethic.
Mamdani donned a thrifted suit for an early video at the Polar Bear Plunge in Coney Island. His campaign has combined an impactful ground game powered by thousands of volunteers with an equally strong social media presence.
“No matter your age, everyone lives on their phone. And it’s an opportunity to tell your story as to what it is you’re fighting for,” said Mamdani, “[even] if that means jumping into ice cold water in a suit bought from Steinway Thrift — $30, incredible deal, I recommend it to all — to speak about a rent freeze.”
Roughly seven months out from the elections, the strategy is already paying off. Mamdani has raised $3.8 million in the last filing period, more than any other campaign, through contributions from more donors than every other candidate combined. His nearly 5000 volunteers have knocked on 60,000 doors, and the barrage of short-form videos about his proposed policies has pulled him neck-and-neck with other, more established contenders like Comptroller Brad Lander.
“I always knew I was a New Yorker. [But] I didn’t know how my politics fit into New York City, and here was this Palestinian man who was vocal in his support for universal human rights, and tying it also to the fight for a more affordable city for working class people, fighting back against corporate interests.” – on working for city council candidate Khader El-Yateem in 2017.
The several-hundred-million dollar question — in some cases billion — is how Mamdani would pay for these blockbuster initiatives if elected. One of his trademark proposals is to abolish the fare for MTA buses, which he said will not only relieve financial pressure from low-income commuters, but also reduce crime and speed up routes by allowing for all-door boarding. Data from a multi-borough pilot program last year largely buttressed these claims. The only catch? He estimates that it would cost the city about $650 million per year to forego bus fares.
Mamdani’s critics say that, as with other socialists, his ideas require spending that’s not feasible. In an interview on The Point in December, Marcia Kramer appeared skeptical that his schemes for drumming up funds, which could include collecting back payments from landlords, would be enough to foot the bill. But the medallion debt deal was a tough sell, costing the city $100 million. And though easy to gloss over, Mamdani’s well-timed alliance with Schumer suggests that the Queens assemblyman may have a more pragmatic bent than his catchy, rapid-fire TikToks might convey.
Every candidate, from the progressive state Senator Zellnor Myrie to the centrist Cuomo, has promised to take drastic measures to make New York less expensive to live in. Mamdani’s proposals may be the most eye-catching, but the elephant in the room is President Donald Trump — whichever politician wins will have to negotiate with a federal government that is loath to offer any funding, let alone for a line item like city-owned grocery stores.
Mamdani has avoided buzzwords on the campaign trail, pitching a larger tent as he courts a wide range of supporters. “As the mayor, you represent all New Yorkers,” he told the Star. “Ultimately, your responsibility is to deliver for those New Yorkers, and what I’ve said does not mean a reflexive position of opposition to a federal administration. It means a willingness to be critical, to be oppositional, to fight, when that administration places your constituents in their crosshairs.”
There’s more to the Queens assemblyman than his brand as the “extremely online” mayoral candidate who has “embraced the cringe,” as The CITY put it. While it remains to be seen whether he can convince voters that he has the managerial and budgeting chops to see his viral ideas realized, Mamdani’s parting pitch is fairly universal: “What the city deserves,” he said, “is someone who continues to believe that it could be better than it is.”
There’s a scene in the new series “Overcompensating” in which the protagonist, a college student who’s finally decided to drop his business major, eagerly shows his friend a short film he’s made. It opens with her lying in a bathtub full of milk, and the plot never gets much further than that. She carefully composes her face, but can’t quite hide her horror. “It’s bad,” he concludes, crestfallen.
On the first Tuesday of June, a bar in Gowanus played host to a different vision of what short films can be: not just a class project, but an event worthy of fanfare; less about navel-gazing, and more about capturing the multiplicity of human experience.
The draw of the night was “GORTS: A Short Film Pride Pop-Up,” a pilot for Shorts Movie Theater, creator Karma Masselli’s forthcoming brick-and-mortar venue. As the sun set outside, over thirty people — mainly in their twenties —buzzed around Threes Brewing, posing on the red carpet and chatting in large clumps before finding their seats. The evening’s two emcees, Declan Zhang and Michelle Kariuki, quickly had the crowd laughing as they shot an impromptu short film, the topic of which was drawn from a hat (“a popsicle lamenting capitalism as it melts”), with actors pulled from the audience. Then the lights dimmed, and the show began.
While the pop-up highlighted the craft of short films, it doubled as a celebratory kick-off to Pride. In the first feature, “Across, Beyond, and Over,” by Brit Fryer and Noah Schamus, two trans men reconnect after decades apart and heal old wounds as they contend with why they broke up in middle school. The second short brought the star power: director Chheangkea’s “Grandmai Nai Who Played Favorites,” which won top marks at this year’s Sundance Festival, follows a closeted gay boy in Cambodia whose family has arranged his marriage. A third and final piece, the low-budget comedy “Finding Bella” by Lucas Castro-Cruz, chronicles a New Yorker who becomes obsessed with tracking down an anthropomorphic pigeon.
“Despite the fact that short films make up a multimillion-dollar industry, with tens of thousands of shorts coming out each year,” explained Masselli, “the artists behind them have no real places to screen their work. Even the filmmakers behind Oscar-contenders find themselves having to rent out theater space on their own dime, just to qualify for the awards.”
“GORTS,” the first teaser event for Shorts Movie Theater, took place on June 3 at Threes Brewing. Photos by Allison Luntz
Though Shorts Movie Theater’s location is still being ironed out, Masselli has several more pop-ups slated for the coming months and is aiming for a launch early next year. She hopes to “harness the modern attention span,” but with a greater emphasis on community: “people can come in to see a short film for a couple bucks,” she envisions, “take a break in the bar and have a drink with their friends, and then go back in and see two more shorts—all before a dinner reservation or whatever their night holds.”
The Star caught up with Masselli to learn more about her influences, the inspirations behind the venue, and what she has in store for her upcoming events.
The pop-up was amazing! How did it feel to see everything come together?
My background is as a theater director, so I’m used to the feeling of, like, “the show is happening!” But I find myself always putting in so many extra elements that require so much work: the red carpet, the hand-painted back of the step-and-repeat, the stencil for the words. So it’s all the more satisfying fun to see it pulled off.
Where did the idea for this project come from?
One of the reasons why I started Shorts Movie Theater was because a group of my friends and I have been running this film collective for the past couple of years, called Neighborhood Film Festival. We call it a festival, but it’s not really that — we pitch projects to each other at the beginning of the year, then we co-produce them and put them all together, and we present them at the end of the year. There’s probably 20 of us who come in and out of going to the meetings.
We’re a bunch of theater makers, and we know each other from various projects or from going to school together. It was originally the idea of Laura Galindo, who was there last night. She invited a bunch of people over to her apartment and said, “We should make a bunch of movies to teach ourselves how to make films, since we’re theater makers. We know we have these skills in collaboration and in storytelling, but we don’t know anything about, like, how you make a schedule for a film shoot. So we started doing this collaborative thing. We’ve made about 20 movies in the past three-and-a-half years.
The pop-up was divided into two screenings, one at 7 p.m. and another at 8:30 p.m.
Shorts Movie Theater was my project for Neighborhood Film Festival this year. Instead of directing a movie, I was like, what if there was a venue that could channel our belief in what a theater experience brings to an art project? Being in an audience is so important to us as theater makers, and so I was working on the business plan instead of making a movie this year, bringing it to the meetings and talking it through with people and working on ideas. It has just become more and more real. [Shorts Movie Theater] is incorporated in New York and forming as a nonprofit. (NFF itself is “still just a groupchat,” Masselli said.) And we’ll have a couple more pop-ups planned for this summer to keep building momentum.
When did you first become involved in theater?
I’ve loved theater for so long. My grandfather was a composer for musical theater, and he showed me how to be an audience person and how to love going to the theater. It instilled in me this feeling that somebody sometimes has to show you how to love the thing that you’re getting into — it’s an apprentice-based work.
When I was 16, I decided I was going to see 100 shows in one year. I spent the whole year getting on the bus and going and seeing random plays. At the end of the year, I was like, I want to be a director. I went to NYU for theater directing, and have been developing new work in the city for the past six or seven years. It’s such an ephemeral type of work, where you make something and you work so hard on it, and then it just disappears the moment that it’s over. Especially the directing work: a playwright finishes and they have a script, but a director? You don’t have anything to point towards what you built, if what you built was right — which is that it’s an experience that people have that moves them. The proof of it is in their life moving forward, but you’re not a part of that.
I found myself wanting to make something where I could see the growth, and that coincided with me attending a film festival a year ago. I had had this idea a couple years ago, actually, that there should be a movie theater for short films. Like, why doesn’t that exist? It’s more common in Europe for shorts to play in theaters, but there’s not a single venue that is dedicated exclusively to short form content. I haven’t been able to find it. I’ve looked, and there doesn’t seem to be a permanent venue for short films anywhere.
I went to this fantastic festival called Middlebury New Filmmaker Festival, which is for first and second-time filmmakers, and that clicked another piece into place. There are all these incredible early projects, where you’re part of an exciting moment in someone’s career. But if it’s a short film, it has no way to connect with an audience. If it’s a really great film, hopefully a studio gets word of it, or someone who has some power finds out about it. [Yet] there’s no venue where an audience can enjoy it as an audience and not have anything to offer that person, just the capacity to enjoy their work and to follow it further.
The exciting part about shorts — one of many things — is the chance to bring the work of artists who are in development. To get those people interacting with their audience sooner in their career, rather than: you’re working for decades, and then you get a feature film, and that’s the first time a massive audience is seeing your work. In theater, we develop by presenting our work to an audience over and over again. There’s all these small theaters in the city where you have a weekend and you do your show, and that’s how I’ve developed as a theater director. It’s totally changed the kind of artist I am.
It’s different when you see the people who took time out of their life and came here and paid, and you have to encounter their physical reality. Then you watch them get bored by some decision you made that you thought was a good idea, and you’re like, “Oh.” Having to use their values and preferences as the barometer for success, rather than your own, is a crucial step as an artist. In my experience of directing, it’s important to burst the bubble of thinking that auteurship is the goal and having total control is the goal.
Two volunteer from the audience rounded out the cast of an ad hoc short film, shot during intermissions.
Because really, I think of directing as an act of service. You’re in service of an experience for all of these other people. In order to do that, you have to actually know: what do they need, what do they want, how can I possibly give it to them? Not just, what do I want to say — how can I show it to them? But you only get to think of your audience that way if you can see them and be in the room with them and feel what it feels like to not impress them, and to lose the chance to connect with them.
Being an audience member is such an enriching experience, because you go through this emotional catharsis with strangers, and you leave that space in peace. Nothing violent or bad happened between you and these other people, but something happened that you shared, and you’re able to move on. That’s a practice that, if you do it a lot, changes the way you look at the world.
And I feel that young people aren’t being invited into theater spaces as much — we’re like, “You can come in if you pay $100 and you sit here for two-and-a-half hours.” And young people are like, “I have no attention span and I have no money.” Well, then you don’t get to come to the theater. Building a space that caters to a modern audience gives us the chance to [cultivate] new audience-goers, and invest in them so that they develop the lifelong habit of going to the movie theater, or any theater.
How can you reinvent the experience, so that a modern person is like, I want to choose to do this? Amongst all my other costs, I want to watch short films. That means giving people more choice, more flexibility. The model for Shorts Movie Theater is that the movies will be programmed individually, not in a block. People can go in and out and see one movie, have a drink at the bar, go and see two more. You’ll pay for everything at the end: when you come, you’ll start a tab. You’ll get this ticket card that has all the movies we’re playing, and the usher will stamp the movie when you go in.
How did you develop this philosophy, which is super compelling to me, of what movie theaters and theater spaces in general need to do in this moment to survive? Are there any models you’ve drawn inspiration from?
My biggest inspiration, and my model for this, is my mom’s museum — she runs a children’s museum in Connecticut called Kidcity. She started it because she had two kids, she had nothing going on with her career, and she needed a place to feel like there was somewhere she could go and actually experience being a good parent. So she created this children’s museum out of her imagination and need for it, and it’s the most amazing place. It’s artistic and beautiful and creative. But the most important thing is that Kidcity is a nonprofit, and it’s the only museum of its kind in the whole country that operates off of its ticket sales.
“GORTS” drew a core group of Neighborhood Film Festival members, as well as friends, short film enthusiasts, and interested passersby.
They don’t take donations. They’re not grant funded. They are able to stay open because their customer pays a ticket, and they basically operate like a business. They are mission-based, but my mom has always instilled in me that the person you take money from is your customer. If you take your money from your donor and that is how your business stays open, then that is the person who you’re serving.
It’s insane how many people make short films and they’ve seen, like, two of them — and I’m one of those people. I made a short film having probably watched one before. Then you watch all these shorts and wonder, why are they all making the same mistakes? It’s because you don’t watch short films, so you don’t know that everybody makes the same mistakes about these cliche moments. There’s economic value to be made here, and that’s really important to me. Not the money side, but the idea that [this venue] could be connected to the industry and connected to people’s lives.
Any final thoughts?
I see Shorts Movie Theater as a play, basically. It’s people going into a shared space, experiencing something, and leaving. How can we craft their emotional arc so that they walk away thinking, “Oh my God, I really like my life, I want to be a part of this world, and I want to keep being engaged?”
Want to learn more? Visit https://www.shortsmovietheater.com to sign up for the project’s mailing list, and to find info about the next pop-up.
Maison Provence is a Brooklyn restaurant inspired by the flavors and charm of the South of France, and encompasses the creative vision and efforts of Chef Dantonio Lolo – who was born and raised in Nice, France.
