Resistance Cinema Turns One Year Old!
Resistance Cinema is a monthly screening series curated by Erin Escobar, inspired by the principles of the now-defunct Cinefamily. RC’s goal is to bring cinema to the masses.
Los Angeles has a rich history of arthouse cinemas, movie palaces, and hidden gems. However, these venues have often catered to a niche cinephile audience with relatively narrow demographics. Our goal is to broaden the reach and impact of the moviegoing experience by creating a space that welcomes the often overlooked and underrepresented communities of Los Angeles—particularly queer, trans, Black, Indigenous, people of color, and neurodivergent audiences.
We firmly believe in the power of cinema to inspire, inform, and entertain people across the world. Resistance Cinema aims to dismantle the barriers that have prevented many people from experiencing eclectic and thought-provoking films from around the globe.
Art can heal. Art can inspire. Through the power of the moving image, we strive to create an affordable, welcoming third space where everyone can come together to experience the transformative power of film.
When we kicked off Resistance Cinema in the fall of 2025, we were just a ragtag group of community-based activists, backed by LA ICE Breakers, a young Direct Action organization still finding its footing and place within the broader anti-ICE movement across Los Angeles and the nation. Our inaugural screening was hosted at Whammy Analog in Echo Park, a neighborhood that, even now, remains a target for ICE raids due to its history as a predominantly Hispanic and mixed-ethnic neighborhood.
Echo Park embodies so many aspects of Los Angeles, from its gay bars in the neighboring Silver Lake area, like Akbar, The Eagle, and The Black Cat, to its history of fighting back against gentrification, to the activists who patrol and warn their communities before ICE raids. Echo Park combines many of the diverse and unique communities that call LA home into one hyper-real melting pot of ideas, art, life, and creativity. And we want to play a role in that.
We initially screened John Carpenter’s 1988 sci-fi cult classic They Live, starring Keith David and legendary wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper. Even though it was a small turnout, the ruckus and sense of rebellion were palpable. After all, there is a long, storied history of activist groups using the power of the moving image to inform, inspire, and entertain communities during times of political, social, and economic upheaval.
The French Resistance screened newsreel footage smuggled into Vichy France by Allied spies. The Soviets screened their iconic wartime epic Two Soldiers in the trenches as both a morale boost and a reminder that they were not fighting alone. Resistance comes in many forms, shapes, and sizes, and the power of the moving image is one of, if not the most, effective forms of rallying against fascism.
Since then, we’ve screened Paul Verhoeven’s cyberpunk classic RoboCop, BlacKkKlansman, Snowpiercer, The People vs. Larry Flynt, and so much more, with the aim of providing a free and accessible means of experiencing impactful, insightful, and entertaining films from all genres and across all decades.
We hope to expand the screening series to eventually include two screenings a month rather than just one, as well as incorporate more family-oriented films. After all, films like A Bug’s Life, FernGully: The Last Rainforest, An American Tail, and The Brave Little Toaster have meaningful life lessons to impart to future generations: that unity among workers is our true power, that fighting to defend Mother Nature is a noble cause, that the American immigrant story is beautiful and universal, and that fighting for your friends with love, compassion, and understanding makes you strong, not weak.
These are valuable life lessons that shaped and informed an entire generation of Millennials. Perhaps that is why so many of us have become civically minded and continue fighting for a better world. These films raised us. They gave us guidance, inspiration, and role models. That is why we screen them: to inspire all of us to do better, work harder, and fight for a better future.
Because there is no fate but what we make for ourselves.
So, we hope to see you at our next screening in mid-October at our office in Koreatown for a special Halloween screening of Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi horror masterpiece Alien. Because the real monster isn’t the creature, but the cold and calculated nature of ultra-late-stage capitalism, where the lives of workers are rendered meaningless in the face of profit.
We hope to see you there, and remember, art is a weapon, art is a tool, art can stab through the heart of fascism stronger than any bullet. Art, cinema, revolution!
