Open screenings accepted film submissions in place of admission fees

Evidence

Encouraged by the subterranean audience, the Charles had begun monthly open screenings, or “festivals.” Admission was 95 cents or the submission of one film for projection. These screenings proved popular—according to Langsford, the first had a crowd of filmmakers and friends lined up around the block. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 373

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Relevant to Grafting & Growth indirectly, but more directly the cheap-rent/ignorable-art-forms material condition: a theater that trades admission for a submission is an infrastructure of underground cinema — the audience was itself the programming.
• QUESTION: How did the Charles Theater cover costs on 95-cent admissions and film-substitution tickets? This is a material-condition question worth chasing.