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River Street Studios has hosted scores of creative projects out of a former Portland Fire & Rescue boathouse for decades, including art studios, a jewelry designer and a music space. In the mid-2010s, Boathouse Microcinema was one such endeavor, an experimental film series meant to unite avant-garde filmmakers in their love of alternative movies. The pandemic put an end to what had started out as only a 10-week project by a Portland State University film professor in 2017 that grew into a seasonal weekly spread of eight to 12 movies per term and won support from arts organizations such as the Precipice Fund. But Chris Freeman carried the mantle passed to him by co-founder Matt McCormick, and has revived Boathouse Microcinema for spring 2025 with fellow cinephile Bryan Boyce.
“There have been other ones throughout the history of Portland, but little underground community venues have not been as prevalent, which is why we’ve had people ask us, ‘Are you going to restart it?’ with this hungry look in their eyes,” Boyce says. “It feels like folks are into having another little hub in the underground community here.”
Freeman and Boyce, united by their love of Portland’s experimental film scene, will reopen Boathouse Microcinema on Sunday, March 9. McCormick will return to present a program on the turn-of-the-millennium history of experimental film in Portland, which will include recently remastered versions of his films The Vyrotonin Decision (1999) and The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal (2002), the latter of which features narration by Miranda July. Boathouse Microcinema’s first group series will screen Wednesday, March 12, with selections from artists who include Sarah Turner, Matthew Nash, Lily King and Kai Nealis. Documentary filmmaker Carl Diehl will show his biographical feature Painless Magic on St. Patrick’s Day. Painless Magic shares the life of vaudeville illusionist Werner “Dorney” Dornfeld, who gained prominence after World War I as a leader of organized magicians.
For this new iteration, Freeman and Boyce have done away with Boathouse Microcinema’s box office, making its shows free by self-funding the space with day job revenue. “We want, as much as possible, an in-person maker to engage in the community feeling we’re going for,” Boyce says. “I want to be a place where we can nurture especially younger folks who, like me when I first got screened at other cinemas, were just getting out of school and have their new art piece that you want to show, and you feel lucky to screen because not every town has a space where you can see this kind of work. It’s great to have a place to screen it and [to] see what’s going on in the community.”
The independent film community is important to Freeman and Boyce. They see the return of Boathouse Microcinema as a vital showing for not only the local community of image makers who redefine what movies can be, but for the entire West Coast. They want to offer touring filmmakers a chance to connect with Portland audiences and creatives, like Bay Area filmmakers Boyce knew from his time there.
“It might be a little chaotic because we’re getting things back together,” Freeman says. He still says to expect plenty of glitch art, nonlinear ambient storytelling and anti-Hollywood form.
“We want to see how things ricochet off each other and see what works together,” Boyce says. “It’s nice to have themes, but it depends on what submissions show up and how we see how things work together.”
SEE IT: Boathouse Microcinema at River Street Studios, 820 N River St., boathousemicrocinema.com.