Forget the algorithm’s infinite scroll. Stray Cat Film Center’s cinematic playlist is a weird, wild west for your soul
Photo Courtesy of the Stray Cat Film Center
The Stray Cat Film Center Programmer and Board Member Allison Lloyd sits with her colleagues, Andrew Linn and Willy Evans. The lobby at 1662 Broadway Blvd. is filled with easter eggs curated by a deep knowledge of film, video, and culture, both high and pop.
Its cozy, eclectic feel is anchored by a huge wall of vintage TVs running a continual loop of experimental video footage, almost overshadowing the Overlook Hotel carpet underneath their feet.
What began in 2018 as a small collective of artists, film buffs, and archivists with clandestine showings throughout the city has evolved into a nonprofit organization with a board of directors, its own microcinema, and a schedule of screenings spanning classics, kitsch, and buried treasures.
The team sat down with The Pitch to discuss their discovery process, the collective, and their shared love of cinema.
The Pitch: Is there a difference, to you, between cinema and movies?
Willy Evans: Oh, fuck off. I think that, in my mind, there’s not that much of a difference in any medium. Any kind of video format that you connect with in any way counts. I have a very broad definition that includes particularly good TikToks.
Andrew Linn: I also feel like there shouldn’t really be a huge barrier between high art and low art, in that everything in between has something to say about the society that creates it, and to dismiss one as not being important or not having something to say is pretty reductive, I think.
Evans: That was one of the things that drew me in and made me fall in love with Stray Cat the most—it’s a place that will simultaneously screen-
Linn: Blood Gnome?
Evans: –Blood Gnome and Jeanne Dielman in the same month.
Allison Lloyd: It’s funny because, for a lot of us I think the distinction is in the presentation. The fact that you’ve found all this video ephemera and then cut it together into an hour-and-a-half mixtape and then you put it on a big screen for an audience, that context all of a sudden makes it into cinema.
Why are movies the art form you’re drawn to?
Lloyd: I think everyone has the same story, which is like, when you’re a child, and maybe you’re really weird or an old soul. We get old soul a lot. A lot of times, people are trying to find the medium that speaks to them while they’re younger and I can’t speak for everyone at the Stray Cat, but I think it’s a common story for a lot of us that movies, when we were young, presented itself as an art form that is meaningful or impactful.
Evans: I think it also has a real flexibility that I like. “I fell in love with movies” is one thing, and then I have really felt it transform as I have gone through my entire life—the kinds of experiences I can have while watching a movie. That’s true for a lot of other art forms, but I think particularly films, because it is this intersection of so many other art forms as well. It just feels very dynamic.
Linn: I distinctly remember watching a lot of movies growing up as a child. I feel like everyone has that one movie they really kind of meld their psyche to in a lot of ways. I think there’s something to just the image moving, the flickering of light. It’s just something that can be very transfixing to some people. I was very transfixed by it from a very young age. And as I’ve grown older, going to the theatre is this communal experience you can have alone, which is, as someone who is kind of introverted and has some social anxieties, it’s a way for me to have a connection with other people.
Photo Courtesy of the Stray Cat Film Center
The Stray Cat started as a small organization, showing films on the side of buildings, and it was a grant that allowed the lease of this space, right? Was it already the Stray Cat at that point?
Lloyd: Yeah, there were a couple of us who had formed a sort of underground screening collective. We were doing shows around town, and we got a grant from the Charlotte Street Foundation to take the spot that we’re currently in. It was “get this grant, and you get an art space for a year to try out your idea. But it was the Stray Cat always. The collective, at that time, was coming from a very disparate group of people so it was like, ‘Let’s pick a name and hold all of the things we’re interested in under that.’ We were always a nonprofit. The key distinction is that a nonprofit organization can maintain its 501(c)3 status without holding it. So we started at first as a nonprofit and then it was a multi-year process for us to get our 501(c)3 status.
It’s a really rare thing in Kansas City to have a group of artists who are amazing at what they do and also have the business acumen to make that thing happen.
Linn: One of us had the business acumen. You just need one.
Lloyd: We just all get along, and I feel like it’s a real helpful group of people and we try to help each other a lot. You can do a lot of things if you have someone to support you. And that work, the leg work to finally get 501(c)3 status—that was carried in a big way by our programmer David Alpert who is also an amazing film programmer, and I think part of that process was him being able to be, ‘I’m going to handle this 501(c)3 thing, but I have so many other responsibilities, can other people help take those over so I can go pursue this project that will help us?’
That happens a lot and everyone tries to be supportive in the same way. So, if there’s someone at Stray Cat who has a really beautiful idea for the space that would be really meaningful to us, but they’re also like, ‘I don’t have the time for all this other stuff,’ it’s like: Fine. We’ll find the time if that affords you the chance to go out and try this.
Is this (nonprofit status) a track you’d recommend to other small arts collectives?
Lloyd: I would say, yes. It’s a long game. If you’ve got an idea for an arts business, I think it costs like $40 and one piece of paper to become a for-profit business in this state. You could start doing it literally tomorrow. Going nonprofit and becoming a 501(c)3 organization is a lot more complicated and takes a lot longer. You need more help to do it. But the payoff for it is, I would say, really good.
What’s your favorite movie? What makes it special?
Evans: It’s this movie called Your Sister’s Sister. It stars Mark Duplass, Rosemary DeWitt, and Emily Blunt, and it was shot over a couple of days on an island in Puget Sound, heavily improvised and has this really outlandish plot that is played very straight in this really naturalistic way. I just felt really connected to those characters, like there were real people I could connect with.
Linn: The first one that really popped into my head is the 1995 movie Party Girl. Well, as someone who, post-COVID, decided to stop one career and become a librarian, it has a very special place for me that way. It’s also just that same self-actualization tale that I really gravitate to. The soundtrack rules. It was the first movie broadcast on the internet, so it has this real technical history to it. Yeah, in 1995 they did a premiere where they screened it over the internet for people to watch—In glorious 240p.
Lloyd: The way it was meant to be seen. Ahhh… I’m really stuck between two. My usual go-to is the Kurosawa film Ikiru, AKA To Live. It’s a really beautiful film. I saw it when I was 20, and I was like, ‘That’s such a good movie,’ and I’ve watched it every four or five years since, and every time I just connect to it so much more strongly. I think the last time I watched it, well, I have a film print of it, and I played it here. While I was playing it, I wasn’t even watching the film I was just looking through the curtain to see if the 16mm was projecting correctly, and just seeing snippets of it made me want to weep.
Is there a movie you’re precious about? Something you’ll hold it tight and make sure nobody can fuck with it?
Lloyd: You can’t be precious about things if you want to be a film programmer because the second you name a movie and you’re like, ‘This is the most important film ever,’ and you get mad if someone doesn’t like this thing that’s so important to you, well, you’re gonna go through that a lot if you run a movie theatre, if you program film, or if you doing any kind of arts distribution.
Linn: I have two thoughts on that: the second one is that I love it when people tell me they hated the movie I just showed. I’m just like, ‘Tell me more about that,’ because I feel like that’s when you get a very interesting conversation as long as it’s being done in good faith both ways. The first one is a film that I will keep showing no matter what. I think I showed a double-screening of it one time and I think three people combined showed up. And I just think I need to show that again. It’s the ’60s Japanese horror movie Kuroneko.
What are you most looking forward to at Stray Cat?
Linn: I was looking at our calendar for August and we have a lot of great stuff coming up. We’re showing a lot of newer release stuff.
Evans: Aug. 8th and 12th, we’re showing the new movie by the director of The Greasy Strangler called Ebony and Ivory. Our programmer Brendan booked that.
Lloyd: 16mm screenings are going to be starting back up in September. We will be getting a print of the film Coffy starring Pam Grier. Arguably the best blaxploitation film. And as a blaxploitation film, there’s blood and violence and sex and everything you’d want in a movie like that, but also it’s the star making turn for Pam Grier, and she’s so incredible in the movie and such a vital presence in it. I’ve always loved that film and we found out there is a little 16mm film print of it out there we’re going to get and show in a few places in the Midwest.
Evans: Tomboy is coming up on August 15th, a movie by Céline Sciamma that I adore. It’s really small and powerful and made by one of the best to ever do it.
