Avant-garde films premiered in coffee shops with borrowed equipment and no audience

Evidence

The Flower Thief was something like the scene’s home movie, premiering at the Coffee Gallery on a borrowed 16mm projector. Rice’s then friend, the future producer Barry Clark, stood at the door asking for donations: “I don’t recall any contributions, any applause, or any comments,” he would later write. “The whole thing felt like a dismal failure.” — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 157

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Supports the article on gentrification’s origin — the Coffee Gallery as low-rent venue where avant-garde culture incubated before displacement.