Picture Lock One 📽️ : Unlocking community through microcinema

In a former bank vault beneath Collar Works in downtown Troy, a new kind of film culture is quietly taking root in the Capital Region. 

Inspired by the DIY ethos of microcinemas and the film center movement, Picture Lock One is creating fresh opportunities to engage with cinematic works beyond the mainstream. The project was launched this spring by a collective of artists and filmmakers, principally led by Emma Baiada, Angus McCullough and Adam Tinkle. 

“We see a keen need to build reciprocal connections between films, audiences, and filmmakers who might not otherwise find each other—bridging gaps between the larger film world and the local community of artists and curious viewers,” the group says in its mission statement. 

“We’re not trying to compete with the big film festivals or become some kind of validating authority,” Angus adds. “We’re building a community.”

And they’re doing it intentionally: by selectively screening hard-to-find (but not necessarily experimental) films, by creating site-specific programming, and by curating experiences that take film appreciation to a new level.

Every PL1 event is designed to end with spirited conversation. Sometimes, the filmmakers will be present to speak about their work (as with Thursday’s screening of Rock Bottom Riser with Fern Silva). Other times, it’s just the audience. But the goal is always to hold space for dialogue around the ideas and questions that the film brings up.

“We move the chairs around, and the discussion starts the moment the credits roll,” Adam says. “At a time when people can watch infinite movies at home on their couch, we’re trying to create a communal experience that's meaningful.”

This sense of shared authorship extends to PL1’s Open Screen nights, where local filmmakers—and even people who might not think of themselves as filmmakers—are invited to submit screen-based work. 

“We’re interested in what people are already making—and having this expansive definition of what a filmmaker is,” Emma says. “Even if it’s something you shot on your phone—that can be a film. It all counts.”

And that’s the point: creating a bigger tent for the local film community, while expanding the meaning of “cinema.”

The space is the frame

Picture Lock One’s first season, Underground, plays off its setting in a literal vault—tying together themes like buried histories, inner bodies, geologic time, and underground movements. But it also speaks metaphorically to PL1’s mission of unearthing voices and perspectives that have often been buried or ignored.

Debuting in July, Sweat Equity will explore themes of labor, money and capitalism, apropos for this former bank site. Each new location will inform the tone and content of the programming, creating an experience that you just can’t get while browsing Netflix.

“We think about how context changes how you watch,” Emma says. “We're dreaming of future seasons in abandoned malls and treehouses—maybe even in an old porn theater on River Street in downtown Troy [next to No Fun].”

Cultivating a bigger picture

PL1 signals that the Capital Region’s film scene, though in flux, is ripe with potential. With more film production moving to the Capital Region post-Covid, and groups like the 518 Film Network building community infrastructure, there’s a rising hunger for creative hubs that connect makers and viewers—and maybe even turn some viewers into makers themselves.

For the Picture Lock One organizers—who have all found their way to Troy from disparate journeys—the goal is to create more connective tissue and also inspire more critical thinking around visual representation.  

“It's not so much about how big the film industry is here,” Angus says. “It's more like: ‘Can we create a film community that includes everyone, and even reframes how people understand how they intake media writ large? Can we get people to think more critically about their interaction with this media and their creation of it?”

Upcoming events at Picture Lock One

• May 29, 7p — Rock Bottom Riser (Fern Silva, 2021) with the filmmaker in person, screening 16mm shorts and a wild, genre-bending look at science, colonialism, and cosmology in Hawai‘i.
  

• June 25, 7p — Bruce Lee and the Outlaw (Joost Vandebrug, 2018), a haunting doc set in the Bucharest underground.
  

• June 27–29 — The Flaherty Film Seminar: Capital Region Pod, a local offshoot of the legendary film seminar, co-presented with the Tang Teaching Museum and the Sanctuary for Independent Media.
  

• July 25, 7p — Open Screen at Troy Night Out, a showcase of local screen-based work in any form.

The deets: Picture Lock One, currently screening in the basement of Collar Works, 50 4th Street, Troy. Follow their Insta to keep abreast of events. Seating capacity is limited to around 25. Free, but donations are very much appreciated!