Sofia works as a location scout for a TV pilot filming in New York City. It’s her job to find the homes, businesses, and exteriors where the show will be filmed. Driving around the city’s different neighborhoods, she enters the private spaces of strangers to photograph their cozy apartments and eclectic shops, stepping into the fabric of their lives while trying to satisfy the demands of her erratic employers. Over a day filled with these encounters, Sofia witnesses moments of curiosity, vulnerability, and quiet tension until her work takes a sudden, personal turn. Drawing from her own experience as a location scout, writer-director Paula González-Nasser captures the poetry and costs of being a young creative. Her celebrated directorial debut The Scout crafts a contemplative exploration of urban disconnection, following one woman’s journey through other people’s worlds as she struggles to find her own.

Following the finale of his TV series, filmmaker John Wilson looks to the bedrock of his beloved New York City for inspiration and structure. Concrete, the world’s most widely used building material, appears as an ever-present life force, and John sets out to make the definitive documentary on the matter. To tell this seemingly drab story, he decides to use the industry-approved Hallmark formula to increase his movie’s appeal. But his foundation soon begins to crumble—literally and figuratively—as he struggles to balance artistic freedom with the realities of the modern film industry.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16 ~ All roads lead back to RINGU—the blockbuster Japanese horror movie that inspired a million nightmares (and ripoffs and remakes) with its phantasmic elegance. Television journalist Reiko investigates an urban legend about a cursed VHS tape that murders the viewer seven days after they watch it. As the mystery hits closer to home, Reiko joins forces with ex-husband/current-exorcist Takashi to destroy the curse. And (hopefully) survive an encounter with a ghost named Sadako. Directed by Hideo Nakata (DARK WATER), RINGU is the highest grossing Japanese horror movie in history that STILL manages to shred our nerves. 4K RESTORATION.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16 ~ At the turn of the millennium, a group of young people in Tokyo experience an increasing number of missing co-worker, technological breakdown and a mysterious website which asks: “Do you want to meet a ghost?” After the sudden deaths of several friends, three strangers explore a city that grows more empty by the day, and attempt to solve what lies within a forbidden room in an abandoned construction site, mysteriously sealed shut with red packing tape. Featuring a new 4K restoration from American Genre Film Archive.