November 10, 2026
By Kim Velsey
Though mention of the Park Slope Food Coop brings to mind a number of defining features—including a fantastic cheese selection, local produce and bulk nuts—movies are not among them, at least for most people. But for the past 14 years, the Coop has hosted a film screening every month or so, showing films made or worked on by Coop members, followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers, some of whom are documentary directors or editors, and others cinematographers, producers or screenwriters.
“I’ve been working in the film industry for 30 years—mainly editing documentary features—and I’ve met so many other filmmakers through the Coop,” says Gabriel Rhodes, who alongside his wife Jennifer Miller, runs the Coop’s Film Night, which is held at 7 p.m., usually on a Thursday, approximately ten times a year.
Besides the Coop member connection, there are few other hard and fast requirements. Films have ranged from Flood, a documentary that Katy Scoggin made about her relationship with her estranged evangelical father, to Listening to Kenny G., a movie about the saxophonist for which Naiti Gámez served as cinematographer. There was 32 Sounds, an immersive film about sound co-produced by Nora Wilkinson. July’s film night featured a selection of films made by Hope Hall, who worked as the principal videographer in the Obama White House from 2011 to 2017 and also makes more experimental work. A Coop member since the early 2000s, Hall says that as a mentor and teacher, she most often shows her work to specific groups—social activists, undergraduates ans aspiring filmmakers—and chooses tightly focused programs for each group. For the Coop, she was able to pick a far more wide-ranging selection. “It was lovely and freeing to present for my Coop community. I didn’t feel like I had to think about programming in any sort of didactic way. Sort of like when you’re working at the Coop and you’re just a person on the planet. I felt like, ‘Wow, this is me.’ It was everything from extremely personal to 100 percent propaganda.”
Films come via member submissions, word of mouth and some sourcing on the couple’s part, for example, by following up with filmmaker members about upcoming projects. They prefer films that are somewhat family friendly, but don’t shy away from weighty subjects, either—screening, for example, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, the Oscar-nominated documentary edited by member Amy Foote about photographer Nan Goldin and her fight to hold the Sackler family accountable for the opioid crisis. Every year, Rhodes and Miller also try to schedule a selection of shorts. “We get to show films that people don’t usually see or weren’t distributed,” says Miller. “Films that were a labor of love. Niche-y in a good way.”
Rhodes has been working the Film Night shift since 2012, when another member convinced him to join the film committee she’d started. When she left a short time later, Rhodes took over the operation. Miller, a magazine photo director, joined a few years after that. “Before this, I’d done many different jobs: I did the laundry shift, I did nuts and cheese, I did walking, I did stocking, I did the 5 a.m. CHiPS shift,” she says.
“I would get on the loudspeaker and say, ‘Tonight we’re screening a film. Come upstairs and bring your dinner. We’ll have a Q&A after.’ People would leave their carts downstairs and come up.”
Gabriel Rhodes
For years, Film Night was held in the meeting room upstairs, where there was a projector. The setting gave the screenings an air of serendipity—you never knew who’d wander in. “I would get on the loudspeaker and say, ‘Tonight we’re screening a film. Come upstairs and bring your dinner. We’ll have a Q&A after,’” says Rhodes. “People would leave their carts downstairs and come up.”
During Covid, the screenings shifted to Zoom—Quicktime files are now shared with attendees and the Q&A is streamed over Zoom. While Rhodes and Miller both miss the sense of community and impromptu connection that the in-person gatherings fostered, Rhodes says it’s nice that people can join from home now. Screening turnouts are attended by anywhere from eight to 30 people. “No matter how many people we have, the conversation is always amazing,” he says. “Coop members are a really savvy audience and they love to ask questions. They ask the best questions, become really engaged, tell personal stories.” It’s also a unique opportunity for aspiring and up-and-coming filmmakers, Miller says: “You get to ask questions of professionals in an intimate setting.”
The December 3rd screening will be Food Coop, a movie made a decade ago by Tom Boothe, who has since moved to Paris and opened a co-op modeled on Park Slope’s. “It will be a cool way to celebrate the Coop,” says Rhodes. “Where else are you going to see that movie? Especially with the filmmaker, who will be joining us from France.”
To learn about future screenings, email Jennifer Miller at jlymiller@me.com to sign up for the Film Night listserve. Screening dates are also listed in the Linewaiters’ Gazette’s calendar.
Kim Velsey has been a Coop member since 2020. When she’s not writing for the Gazette, she’s a staff writer at New York magazine.