Little Theatre Cafe

The Little Theatre in Rochester, New York, commonly known as "The Little" is a movie theatre located on historic East Avenue in downtown Rochester, New York and a modest non-profit multiplex specializing in art film, including independent and foreign productions outside the United States. The Little Theatre began in Rochester in 1928 as a link in a proposed chain of small theatres designed to provide an "intimate" alternative to the large commercial movie houses of the day. The "little cinema movement," which was dedicated to showing "art films that appeal to the intelligent and sophisticated," started in 1925. When it opened in 1929, the Little Theatre was the fifth "little temple of the cinema" to be built. The "little cinema movement" represented a response to the mass merchandising trends in the entertainment industry that was gathering momentum in the 1920s with the ascension of mass circulation magazines and the arrival of radio. With movie companies and film producers devoting increasing attention to the new and mass market "talking" motion pictures, the "little cinema movement" attempted to reach an audience open to the experimental, the eclectic, and the unusual. It hoped to appeal to devotees of silent films, foreign films and films based on the classics.