Zoe Beloff presents Life Forgotten (screening and book launch)

Situating archival film in parallel with reenactment, the film asks, how does everyday entertainment bring people together and act as a catalyst for social change? Set in New York’s Lower East Side in the early years of the twentieth century, it centers on a real storefront cinema, Frank Seiden’s Variety Theater. Here silent movies were anything but. Frank and his sons improvised dialog for the films and sang Yiddish ballads to an audience that didn’t hesitate to join in or argue back. It was a welcoming space for women, and the film follows a group of radical young garment workers who gather here to figure out how to fight for women’s rights and change their world. (Zoe Beloff, USA, 2026, 50 min.)

About the book: 

This book is a companion to the film. It includes both my art work and historical documents. It brings together multiple perspectives: oral histories from…