For its initial lineup, the theater is screening several Academy Award nominees, including Best Documentary nominees Summer of Soul and Writing with Fire; Flee, which has been nominated for Best Documentary as well as Best International and Best Animated Feature; and Nightmare Alley, which has been nominated for Best Picture and Best Cinematography.

There also will be showings of Compartment No. 6 (Grand Prix winner at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival), the documentary Breaking Bread and The Swimming Pool, a 1969 classic French melodrama with Alain Delon and Romy Schneider.

Screenings are scheduled to begin on Friday, February 18. Initial plans call for multiple daily showings from Thursday through Sunday (and on holiday weekends, Friday through Monday). They also plan to continue their TalkBack and lecture series online, though Palmucci notes they may phase out the streaming showings. (More information about pricing and times will be posted on their website in the coming days.)

Palmucci, who has lived in the city for about 45 years, says he was eager to get back to cinemas once theaters reopened in the city last March. He remains optimistic that in light of the slow easing of pandemic restrictions, people will be eager to resume communal activities like movie-going.

"We have a mailing list of about 13,000 people, mostly on the Upper West Side, and the thing that we really found in our tenure at the [NYIT Auditorium] is that there was a very loyal group of people who came to our theater who really felt the absence of Lincoln Plaza, almost as if they lost a family member or something," he said. "A lot of these people have been asking us for the last year or so, what's going on, are you going to have a new space? The idea of that community that people experience ... people miss it. They appreciate the other technical options that are available to watch films, but I think they missed that communal spirit. And we're hoping that that's still there, and that people are going to come out and welcome it."