Phoenix's Phosphene Cinema brings together movie lovers to watch little-known art films together

Lots of us stream movies at home, and in many cases, we do that in small groups or by ourselves.

But Isaac Merrill wants us to get together to watch movies — and they’ve started a group to help facilitate that.

Merrill runs a local screening group called Phosphene Cinema, which shows independent and local films. They’ve been doing this for about a year now, and when they came by the studio to talk about it, The Show asked why they decided to start the group.

Full conversation

ISAAC MERRILL: I'm very passionate about film, and in Arizona, we don't have nearly as many opportunities as some of the other big cities you think about when you think about film culture — you know, Chicago, L.A., New York. And I was just fear of missing out. I was missing out on opportunities I saw other people experiencing in those places.

And I wanted to find the film community here. I found that there's so many people who are putting on great events, people who are very passionate like I was. And so I started it as an excuse to meet other people who shared that interest.

MARK BRODIE: So you talk about missing out on the opportunities that people had in other places. What kinds of opportunities are you looking to create here?

MERRILL: Yeah, if you see very often with new restorations of older movies or even new releases of movies that will go under the radar and we don't get here. Whether it's a foreign release that only gets very limited screenings, or the kind of independent or experimental stuff that I'm very interested in that just won't get shown here theatrically whatsoever.

And it's sad when great art like that, that I love, we just don't get an opportunity to see. And if we do, it's because of people like me who have put a lot of effort into really showing it to the public. And so there's a lot of art like that, I think, that deserves to be seen the way it was intended to with an audience.

BRODIE: So is this in some way in response to people being able to, you know, stream an independent movie at home and sitting on their couch? It sounds like part of this is you want people to get together and be together to experience these movies all together.

MERRILL: Yeah, definitely. One of the beautiful things about the art of cinema is you get to see how you are in relation to other people. You get to react to a circumstance in a group. And that can really tell you a lot about yourself and a lot about other people.

And it's not emphasized the importance of group movie watching as much as — I've been involved in a lot of music, local music scene for a long time, and everyone knows the importance of seeing music live.

But for whatever reasons movies have been sold that it's OK to just watch it on your own, stream it at home. But it takes away a lot from the experience. Not that I don't stream myself. It's beautiful that you can find very obscure and have personal experiences on your own or just with friends in your living room. But it can take away a lot from what cinema is intended to be.

BRODIE: So I'm curious, do you differentiate between the kinds of events you put on? And for example, if I have a bunch of friends at my house and we stream a movie, we're still watching it together — it's on my couch.

MERRILL: Well, that's a great question because it started as just doing things in my living room. ... So I don't think so. I don't think there needs to be a differentiation of how professional something becomes if it is not just your friends or you take it outside of a living room into a more high-end space.

Because I think it really is just about the group experience in that kind of community. But what I personally am interested in is taking what you would think is the kind of art you would just watch with friends in the living room — whether it's something interested in genre film, whether it's like horror or comedy, you know, musicals, the kind of things that sometimes aren't taken as seriously. And then giving them a place where no, there's a lot to really consider with this and put it in a little bit more respectable space, if you will.

But I'm all for throwing your own little movie nights together. That's what makes it special.

BRODIE: So how do you go about trying to A, find the movies you're going to screen? And then B, get ahold of them to actually screen them?

MERRILL: Yeah, it's something I had no idea how to do a year ago. And I've had a great opportunity learning. But screening movies is a more arduous and expensive effort than I thought it would be. But most of the time, I'm reaching directly out to independent artists who have no distribution. And I just ask them, "Hey, do you, can I show your movie?"

And I've never had rejection, not yet.

BRODIE: Have you learned anything about yourself from watching these movies?

MERRILL: Oh, yeah, totally. Like I said earlier, the great thing about watching movies with a group of people is you'll always learn something about yourself and about how you function within a group. And I'll watch movies I've seen tons and tons of times with a group for the first time. And I'll always see something new and always feel a different emotion.

And you can change how you feel about something just in the way you watch it and the way you see other people react. So, yeah, I've definitely learned about what interests me most in art, different things about my identity that I like seeing represented in movies.

BRODIE: So do you find yourself while you're watching a movie, do you sometimes find yourself watching how other people are watching the movie and reacting to it?

MERRILL: Yeah, definitely. Especially when I'm showing something with Phosphene Cinema. I know points in a movie where I want to be watching the crowd to see how people react. And that's such a joy. That's something that everyone should have the opportunity to feel of, like, I want to show people this and I really want to see how it makes you feel.

So I'll do that all the time during a screening.

BRODIE: Do you find that after the movies — or maybe even before, sometimes — there are conversations with the people who are there. I don't know if that's something you facilitate or maybe it just kind of happens organically. But do you find that people are talking about the movie they are about to watch or that they just watched, or maybe just movies in general or life in general?

MERRILL: Yeah, that's one thing I think I wanted to focus on with the Phosphene Cinema group. Because I think conversations around art is almost just as important as, you know, seeing the art in the first place. And it makes me very happy that the kind of people that I've had — though, it's a small group of people that have come regularly to these screenings.

And it makes me happy that people respond very excited to the work, sometimes. Even if there are things they don't like about it, they want to discuss what they didn't like and why they think it doesn't work, or maybe why it does. So those discussions are the most important part of the night to me sometimes.

BRODIE: And what is your ultimate goal? Do you have bigger dreams for Phosphene?

MERRILL: Yeah, I do. The biggest inspirations for me locally have been there's a screening group, Cinesylum, and they do horror screenings. And seeing what they did really inspired me to start what I do.

So to be able to program at a official theater, a larger theater would be great. Or with financial help from other people, with more people getting together, pool their money to start a smaller kind of micro-cinema. Where not just me, so many other people could start programming and showing things there weekly that would otherwise not get seen.