A collectively run, non-profit organization based in Portland, Oregon, Cinema Project works to promote public awareness of avant-garde cinema from the past and present. Featuring artists, curators, and scholars from around the world, our semi-annual series of screenings, lectures, and discussions function to broaden public engagement with, and deepen critical understanding of, innovative experimental film and video art.

Unless otherwise noted, screenings for the fall 2010 season take place at Clinton Street Theater (on the corner of SE Clinton St and 26th Ave). Doors open 30 minutes prior to scheduled start time. The suggested donation for admission is $7 ($3 for members).

A volunteer-run organization, Cinema Project has organized and presented more than 95 unique programs since it was founded, in 2003, by film enthusiasts Jeremy Rossen, Pablo de Ocampo, and Autumn Campbell. De Ocampo has since become the Artistic Director of Images Festival in Toronto Canada. Collective members include, at present, Rossen, Campbell, Heather Lane, and Mia Ferm.

Cinema Project has hosted internationally recognized filmmakers such as Walid Ra’ad, Trinh T. Minh-Ha, Sharon Lockhart, and Peter Kubelka. It has presented large-scale retrospectives of artists including Yoko Ono, Chantal Akerman, Peggy Ahwesh, Bruce Conner, and Joseph Cornell. In 2008, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts awarded Cinema Project a three-year grant in support of its visiting artist and curator program. In 2009, Cinema Project partnered with the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar to sponsor regional fellowships, which allowed collective and board members to attend the seminar. Cinema Project has also partnered with national and international film institutions including Images Festival in Toronto, the Northwest Film Center, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA), Peripheral Produce, San Francisco Cinematheque, Canyon Cinema, the Film-Makers’ Cooperative, and Anthology Film Archives. Locally, Cinema Project curates programs on an annual basis for the Portland International Film Festival and PICA’s Time-Based Arts Festival.

The Clinton Street Theater, a 1915 Portland landmark and one of the oldest operating movie houses in the country, has hosted Cinema Project screenings since spring, 2010.