Film Streams

Rachel Jacobson admits she is a big city person. “I think I am more naturally inclined to the rhythm of a place like New York City,” she says. And yet, after graduating from college in Illinois and spending five years in NYC, the 29-year-old decided to move back to her hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. While many of her friends were pursuing artistic endeavors in New York, Jacobson developed an idea to help enhance the cultural opportunities in Omaha. Her dream job? To open an independent movie theater there and start a nonprofit organization promoting film as art.

And she did just that. Now Film Streams, the organization that Jacobson established (named after the 1984 John Cassavetes film Love Streams), has acquired 501(c)(3) status, gained financial backing from community members, and moved into a newly built theater just north of downtown. The cinema, located in the same complex as the Saddle Creek Records offices and concert venue (Slowdown), screens a variety of films: independent films, documentaries–”things that weren’t playing in Omaha before,” Jacobson says.

Although bringing this cultural resource to the Heartland has presented a fair share of challenges, excitement about Film Streams continues to spread. “It’s great!” says Val Nelson, Event Manager at Slowdown. “The theater has an old French feel. I saw the first film that played, La Vie En Rose- It’s just been wonderful to have Film Streams in the community.”

In tracing the origins of Film Streams, I went right to the source. What follows is my conversation with the motivated and talented Rachel Jacobson. Her story of identifying her ideal job, setting up an individual “curriculum” of sorts to prepare for it, and then moving back home (following a series of fortuitous events) to make her dream a reality is an inspiration to anyone interested in starting a nonprofit, or really, anyone invested in doing meaningful work.

When did you get the idea for Film Streams and how did it evolve?

When I was a senior English major at the University at Illinois, I was taking courses in film history and criticism. I had always been interested in film but started getting excited about it academically and thinking about it as art. I was reading this book called Spike, Mike, Slackers and Dykes [by John Pierson] about the 90s Sundance movement, and another one called Easy Riders, Raging Bulls [by Peter Biskind] about the New Hollywood-how this whole group of directors in the 70s worked together to make their films the way they wanted to.

I became interested in filmmakers being able to express their voice, but I was also concerned that all these commercial issues come into play with film, because it’s such a huge moneymaking and spending industry. I knew I wanted to have a career promoting independent filmmaking somehow. I had this epiphany that I wanted to move back to Omaha and open a movie theater and be able to screen different films-old films and new films and have this whole mix.

So what did you do after having this epiphany?

That was back in 2000. Soon after that I moved to New York City and took a month-long course at NYU in arts administration that was taught by different nonprofit professionals. I kind of wrote the shell of the business plan in that class, as well as the mission that [Film Streams has] today, which is “to enhance the cultural environment of Omaha through the presentation and discussion of film as art.”

How did you gain practical experience to make it happen?

At first I got a job at a start-up nonprofit gallery in SoHo. And then I was offered a position at Miramax and worked as the assistant to the executive vice president of distribution. That kind of reaffirmed my ideas about the commercial side of things, and I really saw how the industry prioritizes box office over art. I had thought that Miramax–you know, they did Pulp Fiction in the ’90s and Clerks–I thought they were more about making good, original film than they were. So it was a little disillusioning but also a good lesson.

Then I went back to the nonprofit world, which I liked a lot better, and worked for development-first at a small theater in the West Village and then at WNYC, which is the big public radio station in New York. There, I worked in fundraising, because I figured that fundraising would be the hardest part of running the movie theater.

While I was at WYNC, I ran into Robb Nansel [co-owner of Saddle Creek Records], because meanwhile, all these Omaha bands were coming up. From 2000 to 2005 when I was there, people started talking about Omaha differently. When they heard I was from there they would say, “Cool!” instead of like, “Omaha? Seriously? What’s there? Cows?” And then it became, “Oh. Conor Oberst! The Faint!” It’s crazy how the perception changed so quickly.

So Nansel and I met after a Cursive show, and he told me how they were looking for a space to start a concert venue, and I told him about the movie theater. The ideas didn’t really coalesce at the time, but then they kind of came together-I think maybe later that night when I was in bed and wasn’t sleeping and got all excited about the possible synergy of [working on] the two projects together…

And Robb called me up a year and a few months later and said, “The city has given us this great opportunity to build our venue from the ground up. And it’s in this new neighborhood that they’re trying to develop, so we’ve decided to do this whole development project and would love to have a movie theater there.”

Were you like, “It’s happening!”?

It was crazy. One of those monumental phone calls. I had just submitted by application to grad school at Columbia to get my Masters in Arts Administration so I could plan the whole thing slowly and carefully. But, you know, actually doing it is a little better than going to school for it!

After I moved home, I dove right in and started developing the board and fundraising. I’ve spent the last two years here just creating the organization. While the [theater] building was being built, we did some programming at the museum and partnered with other arts organizations. I joined a lot of boards in the community, and I’ve been going to tons of events and meeting tons of people. Alexander Payne [Omaha native and director of About Schmidt and Sideways] got on board, and that was huge. There have just been all these little serendipitous things along the way that have made everything work really well.

So the community has been receptive to Film Streams?

Definitely. Things are going well. We have a membership program and a fully operating movie theater downstairs. We just have to get some of the systems on the back end running a little bit better, so that we’re not working 70 and 80 hour weeks anymore.

Do you think that it helped that you crafted your mission so carefully and took the time to get nonprofit experience in New York?

Yes. I mean, [writing the mission] was pretty much what those five years were about. I would literally wake up in the middle of the night and write down some little line in my notebook that made sense for why this theater could help the community. In a nonprofit organization, it’s a great experience to continually sort of have to justify your existence. It would be cool if every company had to do this, because you have to really consider your value to the community.

So I’m wondering what the experience of living back in Omaha has been like.

Oh, that’s been really interesting. I mean, I loved New York–you get so much energy from the city itself, and you’re kind of always reacting to that and engaging in that, and that can be your life. But here you have to create the energy. It’s an easy lifestyle-the cost of living is low; there’s not that much competition. So it’s kind of an inversion of the way that I was productive before. But the city has been really good. Working with Saddle Creek really helped to spark things. Now the chamber is pretty psyched about it all, and they’re trying to do whatever they can.

Film Streams’ Ruth Sokolof Theater is located at the corner of 14th and Webster in downtown Omaha. For more information, visit Film Streams online.