Moving Picture Partners is a not-for-profit organization formed to create a mission-driven community-based art cinema in New Paltz, NY. Since the closing of the Academy Theater in the 1980s, New Paltz has been without an art cinema. The Academy was an entertainment anchor in the downtown area providing cultural and social vitality to the community and attracting patrons to local shops, restaurants
, and bars. The not-for-profit cinema is envisioned to play a similar role and become one of the town's main destinations for evening entertainment and a center for social discourse. The cinema will primarily screen the best of independent, documentary, and world cinema, mixed with classic films. The cinema will provide state-of-the-art digital projection and sound, and provide all patrons with an excellent viewing experience. The mission of the not-for-profit organization, Moving Picture Partners Inc.,(MPP) is:
"to inspire, inform and entertain through the universal language of cinema arts and to serve as a cultural and educational resource for all. MPP is dedicated to the exploration of cinema as an art form, a source of entertainment and an educational tool. It will promote and develop an understanding of and an appreciation for the art of film through the screening of films and the presentation of lectures, symposiums, public discussion and other activities which educate the general public in subjects such as film history, film critique and film making. MPP will promote and develop the appreciation of film in general by preserving the role of film as an enriching social, cultural and educational experience integral to the social fabric of local communities, to family life and to lifelong personal development. MPP is organized and operated exclusively for charitable and educational purposes."
