Maysles Documentary Center (MDC) presents documentary and experimental films alongside occasional narrative works, that amplify marginalized voices, confront injustice, and explore both the possibilities and the limits of the form. It foregrounds documentary cinema’s capacity to challenge dominant histories and to imagine more liberatory futures, with a particular focus on emerging filmmakers of colour, while also fostering dialogue and supporting community engagement and political action.

We spoke with Kazembe Balagun, executive director of MDC, about its distinctive temporal and spatial positioning, its sustained social engagement, its educational programmes, and its deep connection to documentary film.

Can we start by talking about Maysles’ history and what makes it so unique?

Maysles Documentary Center was founded in 2007 by Albert Maysles. He was one half of the Maysles brothers, legendary pioneers of direct cinema in America, known for films like Grey Gardens, Gimme Shelter, and Salesman.

The Maysles family, including his wife Gillian, were originally looking for a place to house their archive. They were thinking about setting up a film centre, almost like a film company that would be responsible for the distribution of their films. They considered different neighbourhoods, and one that came up in particular was Harlem – traditionally the metropolis of Black America, a centre of Black culture since the early 1900s.

At that time, Harlem was changing as a neighbourhood. A decision was made to buy this building, and in the course of buying it Albert got to know many people in the community, especially kids. He would go out into the street and teach kids documentary filmmaking. A lot of it was also about helping kids make video messages for their parents who were incarcerated upstate in New York prisons. That work became the foundation of our education programmes to this day.

So the decision was made: instead of simply having an archive, to form the Maysles Documentary Center as an education space. Along with his son Philip, his friend Jessica Green, and daughter Rebekah, they formed the cinema, which originally, I think, opened around 2010. At first it was a very informal space to watch movies. Over time, it grew into what it is today: an Academy-qualifying theatre with 55 seats.

What is MDC’s mission as an organisation?

We have over 7,000 people who come to the theatre each year. To this day, our mission is to highlight underrepresented and marginalised filmmakers, particularly in documentaries. We do that through our education programmes. Currently, we have three education programmes. One is called Vanguard, which focuses on youth impacted by the criminal justice system. Another is Teen Doc Makers, or Teen Doc Academy – an after-school programme that meets on Fridays for kids to make films. And then we have a new initiative called the Harlem Photo League, which is a twist on the worker photo leagues of the 1930s, focusing on photography, analogue photography, and analogue filmmaking. We work with 16mm and also 35mm still cameras.

In addition to that, we have our crown jewel, which is our cinema – what I call Harlem’s living room. We do over 200 screenings each year, featuring filmmakers from all over the world. Mostly documentary, occasionally fiction features. Our screenings also create opportunities for upcoming filmmakers to network, collaborate, and build bonds. It’s not a museum space where people rush out after a screening. People linger, they talk, they hang out. We have a lounge downstairs where people can stay afterwards. We host political meetings and coalition meetings there, and we act as a support network within the filmmaking ecosystem in the city. We provide fiscal sponsorship for up-and-coming films, so filmmakers can raise money.

Your fiscal sponsorship constitutes an important part of the broader ecosystem…

Many of the films that came through our fiscal sponsorship programme, or received awards from us, have also been pipelined into the Academy Awards. We have an annual documentary award called the Albie Awards, named after Albert. Last year, two films we awarded – Seeds and The Perfect Neighbour – were shortlisted for the Academy Award. So this is the kind of impact we have: building up marginalised filmmakers and creating space. A lot of graduates from our education programmes are filmmakers today, too. They work in different industries and places, but they always come back to Maysles. Maysles is always home.

I’m always happy to walk past the screen and run into someone who says: “Yeah, I know – I took classes at Maysles when I was a teenager.” Or: “When I came to New York, I only had a DVD of my documentary, and Maysles let me screen it there. It was the first time I screened my film, the first time I got critical feedback.” It feels really good to be in a space that allows that kind of growth and lets you watch people grow over time.

What is your audience base? How do you see the composition of your audience?

A lot of arts programming in New York is located in Brooklyn or downtown Manhattan, which has about 12 to 13 different theatres. We’re uptown, in Harlem, and we have to talk about racism and movie theatre apartheid. We are one of four theatres between here and the Bronx. So we play a very important role as an independent, art-house cinema in an uptown, mostly Black and Latino neighbourhood that is often deprived of that kind of cultural infrastructure. A lot of our work is geared toward that community, but we also attract people from all over the city: Brooklyn, Queens, and beyond. It’s a mix of locals from Harlem and uptown, and people travel to see our films. We also have people from all over the world. I’d say it’s racially mixed as well: maybe around 50% Black, but also Latinos, whites, Asians, people who come uptown.

We cultivate what I call “Harlem-world”: we are locally rooted, but we see globally. The conversations we host attract people because they offer both a home context, often centred around civil rights and Black liberation, and a global reach. 

It’s fascinating to see how Maysles screens documentaries as an important platform for wider social, political, and geopolitical discussions. Could you talk about your programming strategies?

Part of what we try to do is connect these issues to local initiatives and people on the ground. Curating and programming becomes almost like being a community organiser. It’s a call to community, a call to conversation, a call to study. I come from a political-left background; my introduction to film was political education. I often have groups come to me asking: “Can we use your space?” And I say yes, but also: “Do you want to make a public event of that? Do you want an opportunity to talk about this, and to watch a film connected to your legacy?” So we become co-creators. We bring our expertise as curators to choose strong films, and they bring the mobilisation work, building community. Once a team does that, it becomes a powerful evening, like last night. Part of the work is curating great conversations, curating community expertise, and bringing in people from around the city who can speak to the films and their topics. 

There used to be a time when you could just announce a title and people would come. That doesn’t really work anymore. You have to create a situation where people feel involved. One thing I keep saying is: “What makes Harlem a living room?” And another thing I say is: “When you watch something alone, it’s streaming; when you watch it together, it’s community.” That’s the big thing I try to focus on.

How are you connected with the local scene?

We have great partnerships locally: the Goethe-Institut, Democratic Socialists of America, etc. Last night we did something great with Survived and Punished. Internationally, we run the Congo in Harlem and the Black Panther Film Festival. For a long time we’ve been the site of the New York African Film Festival. We partner with Harlem-based initiatives like the People’s Film Festival and the Harlem International Film Festival. I go to all these festivals, I see films, and I’m always thinking: which ones will resonate with my audience? We have fun times too with independent Black filmmakers who make documentaries here, such as films about lost sites in Harlem like the rooftop roller-skating rink, one of the first sites of hip-hop.

We’re also doing something with a young brother named Shawn Antoine II, who has a film called The Sight Unseen, about a 1971 sighting of the Virgin Mary in the South Bronx; it’s a docudrama. We’re partnering with a church and doing a screening next week at Columbia University’s Lenfest Center for the Arts, which will bring in 400 people. We do outdoor screenings in the summer. Harlem in the summertime is an outdoor community, so we have to do things outdoors, in the park. We go where the people are.

What is your economic model?

Our economic model is about being fair. Our donation-based entry is on a sliding scale: $7–$15. We know if someone pays $15, they subsidise the person who can pay $7; and the person who can pay $7 subsidises the person who can pay $0. So it becomes a model of sharing, a kind of colony that centres community over money, and over the objectification of art behind a paywall. No one is ever turned away for lack of ability to pay. 

We also pay modest screening fees to directors and distributors to acknowledge their labour and work. We pay living-scale wages for front-of-house staff, projectionists, house managers, and so on.

We’re broke all the time. We have no money. I think that’s something all of us as microcinemas are struggling with right now. We hardly have enough, but what we do have, we spread around. You feel like you’re at home. That’s the feeling we’re happy with. 

That builds a community…

Traditionally, cinema, even community cinema, has been a “barrier” – something very elitist, where you’re expected to come in and shut up, not say anything. People put on images that are confusing, and no one explains what’s going on. I remember the first time I went to an arthouse cinema. My friend took me to see Stan Brakhage, and it was like 10,000 atomic bombs, explosions looping over and over again, and no one explained anything. I was like: “I guess it’s nice?” But here we say: “Let’s have a conversation. How did it make you feel? What comes up for you?” That’s the point. That’s the essence of community.

How do you run low-cost education programmes for the community with a small budget?

Lord, it’s a miracle. A lot of funding comes from the state, the city mostly, not Trump’s America. And a lot comes from philanthropy. We’ve been lucky that at least two of our programmes offer stipends in addition to being free. We give kids a little money to come into the programme. We hope to do that for all programmes at some point. We also offer lunch: free lunch and food to the kids who participate in the programmes. Materials, software, cameras – they’re shared and held in common for projects. And the kids make a project and submit it at the end of the year for the annual festival.

Every year we scrape together the money. We ask, we beg, we cajole, we look for funders. When you create a culture of sharing, people start sharing with you too. I’m a Christian. A miracle is a space where capitalism doesn’t exist – those small pockets where people become forgetful of capitalism. They realise they have an extra piece of bread, they break it apart, and give it to somebody. That’s the ethos we live off, and that’s the ethos I teach the kids too.

Back in the 70s there might have been only one camera in Mozambique. Everyone had to collaborate in order to use that camera. Same with collectives, like the L.A. Rebellion. It wasn’t individualistic; it was collective. I come from an era where I was raised in these spaces: The Kitchen, Knitting Factory, Brecht Forum – all free spaces. But what happened? Gentrification. So spaces like this are very precious. We have to defend them with all we’ve got.

Your team is very diverse and multidisciplinary. They are musicians, art therapists, documentarists, artists. I wonder how you brought the group together, and how you work together.

Let me tell you: I have the best team in the world. They come because they’re committed to the mission, and they bring expertise. A lot have been with us for more than five years. Mind you, they don’t get paid a lot. But as an organisation we appreciate the role of the artist as a sustaining lifeline to the city – artists need space to create their own work. They feel very comfortable working at a place like Maysles, which is flexible with hours and committed to community. They feel part of the group, and they hang out among themselves. 

One thing I’m trying to do now is get all the projectionists up to speed on 16mm. I want to screen more 16mm films. For the Harlem community, it’s important to build film culture as a source of equity. Training our staff, preservation of film, preservation of culture –  that is important too.

Did the cinema space go through changes since it was established?

Yes, it changed over time. Initially, the cinema was a couch, folding chairs, a projector on the floor, and a sheet. And now, through city funding, it’s an Academy-qualifying theatre. We have DCP, a full booth, and we installed a brand-new projector just two weeks ago. We still run 16mm films. We got chairs from a theatre that closed down and installed them in our theatre, so we now have 55 installed seats. Our downstairs space is where many classes take place. Through the DCA, the Department of Cultural Affairs, we received a capital improvement grant to do a study on how to improve our space.

One issue is that we’re not ADA (Americans with Disabilities Acts) compliant. We have stairs and no elevator. So we’re doing a study: do we want to enlarge the space, make it ADA compatible, and maybe have a bigger footprint in the community?

Another thing: the World Cup is coming up. Harlem is a big Francophone community now; many people from Senegal live in Harlem. We plan to screen the World Cup games with chairs outside and so on – ways to extend the screen, extend our community. We want to be part of the street life of Harlem. And I feel like we’re in a storefront. Storefronts in Harlem take pride of place because they have a conversation alongside the street. It’s not just about what’s inside; it’s also about what’s outside as well.

Kazembe Balagun is a cultural organizer, curator, and writer based in Harlem, New York. As Executive Director of the Maysles Documentary Center, he works at the intersection of documentary film, public history, and community engagement. Over the course of his career, he has developed programs, exhibitions, and educational initiatives that amplify grassroots voices, preserve neighborhood histories, and create spaces for dialogue across generations. Grounded in Harlem’s traditions of culture and activism, Balagun’s work explores how storytelling can strengthen civic life, deepen historical understanding, and foster collective imagination.