Programmed August 2025

Celebrating Michael Roemer

With the passing of Michael Roemer earlier this year, American cinema lost one of its most eloquent voices, a long-unsung independent trailblazer whose profoundly humanist, unfailingly truthful vision had only in recent years come to be properly appreciated. A Jewish refugee who escaped Nazi Germany as a child, Roemer made only a handful of features, but each—including the landmark portrait of Black American struggle Nothing but a Man , the wryly offbeat gangster comedy The Plot Against Harry , and the slow-burn domestic drama Vengeance Is Mine —is a small miracle of personal, defiantly anticommercial filmmaking, rich in feeling for character and place and graced with a vérité authenticity that reveals deep insights into human relationships.