Now Showing at Your Local Library: The JBFC Curated Collection

by JBFC Marketing Associate Paige Grand Pré

Looking for something new to watch, but not sure where to start? The Jacob Burns Film Center (JBFC) and Westchester Library System (WLS) have you covered! We understand that not all of our patrons can make it to the JBFC Theater often, so we’ve brought the viewing experience to you. The JBFC is proud to offer the “JBFC Curated Collection,” a permanent collection of carefully selected, high-quality films at WLS locations throughout Westchester County. Featuring films shown at the JBFC Theater, classics recommended by our programming staff, documentaries that constitute essential viewing, and films appropriate for children and families, the JBFC Curated Collection offers something for every type of taste.

First launched in 2009, the original film slate included over 200 DVDs available for loan at the nearby Mount Pleasant Library. In the years since, the JBFC Curated Collection has grown exponentially, while the WLS has worked tirelessly to increase its accessibility for all Westchester residents. More films—old and new alike—are added to the collection each year. Recently-added titles include:

• Captain Fantastic (Matt Ross, 2016)
• Jackie (Pablo Larrain, 2016)
• The Lost City of Z (James Gray, 2016)
• Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt, 2016)
• Indignation (James Schamus, 2016)
• Zero Days (Alex Gibney, 2016)
• Disturbing the Peace (Stephen Apkon & Andrew Young, 2016)
• The Handmaiden (Park Chan-Wook, 2016)
• The Eagle Huntress (Otto Bell, 2016)
• The Red Turtle (Michael Dudok De Wit, 2016)
• A Man Called Ove (Hannes Holm, 2015)
• Tower (Keith Mairland, 2016)
• Hooligan Sparrow (Nanfu Wang, 2016)
• The Salesman (Asghar Farhadi, 2016)
• The Witness (James Solomon, 2015)
• Dheepan (Jacques Audiard, 2015)
• Meet the Patels (Ravi Patel, 2014)
• Son of Saul (Laszlo Nemes, 2015)
• Hitchcock/Truffaut (Kent Jones, 2015)
• Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict (Lisa Immordino Vreeland, 2015)
• Youth (Paolo Sorrentino, 2015)
• Amy (Asif Kapadia, 2015)

After the collection was made available to all library card holders in Westchester County through the WLS’ inter-library loan service in 2012, interest in the collection has continued to grow apace. Now, less than 10 years after its launch, the JBFC Curated Collection boasts over 700 titles and has seen a whopping 35,358 library loans since its inception. If these numbers seem a bit overwhelming, we recommend starting with one of the top ten films loaned in 2017:

1. Meru (Jimmy Chin & Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, 2015)
2. A Walk in the Woods (Ken Kwapis, 2015)
3. Presumed Guilty (Jijo Reed, 2016)
4. The Queen (Stephen Frears, 2006)
5. 12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
6. Jazz on a Summer’s Day (Bert Stein & Aram Avakian, 1959)
7. Macbeth (Justin Kurzel, 2015)
8. Philomena (Stephen Frears, 2013)
9. The Invisible Woman (Ralph Fiennes, 2013)
10. Winter’s Bone (Debra Granik, 2010)

All those titles and more are available through the Westchester Library System. Want to check it out for yourself? View an interactive guide to the JBFC Curated Collection of DVDs on the Mount Pleasant Library website. Pick your favorites or something you’ve never seen before, and bring a little bit of the JBFC home with you—no matter where in Westchester County you live—thanks to the WLS’ inter-library loan system. Happy viewing!