After a rough patch that nearly drove the Cincinnati Film Society to extinction, the group is rebounding.
Modest state and local grants helped mount new exhibitions, including two recent series of film noir classics shown at The Movies Repertory downtown. A new series on French New Wave films begins there Jan. 31.
Plans are afoot for more themed series, a newsletter is in the works, even a Web site (http://www.cincinnatlas.com/filmsociety) is open.
The group hit a bureaucratic pothole about four years ago when a former officer allowed its post office box rental to lapse, says filmmaker Steve Gebhardt, who has been active in resuscitating the society. The oversight left the group out of touch with its members and led to the loss of a key operating grant when a check was returned to the Ohio Arts Council.
''We picked up what was left, which was a film society by name, and decided we weren't going to let something as valuable as that to the community just disappear,'' Mr. Gebhardt says.
The reconstituted group -- including president Dan Peterson, Brother Jerome Pryor from Xavier University, John Aber from the College of Mount St. Joseph, former University of Cincinnati professor R. Hector Currie, psychologist Carol Brady and lawyer Leona Durham, plus the society's managing director Sarah Hawkins -- won about $9,000 in new grants from city and state arts councils.
Last year, the society presented films at Cincinnati Museum Center, including the Palestinian documentary The People and The Land by Riad Bahhur and Tom Hayes, and launched the themed series at The Movies.
In addition to the New Wave series, the society plans series on rock documentaries, avant-garde American film and ''Censored in Cincinnati,'' a series of movies that have drawn official displeasure over the the past 30 years.
In time, Mr. Gebhardt says, the society hopes to present film and video production programs for aspiring creative artists.
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