FORT LEE - Relics of the borough's history in film will find a new home when the Barrymore Film Center opens in 2019.
The borough discussed an update on plans for the center, which is named for actor John Barrymore and will include a 260-seat cinema, at last week's Mayor and Council meeting. Mayor Mark Sokolich said the council plans to solicit bids in the spring and award a contract by the fall.
"There is no other institution in the state of New Jersey like this one," Tom Meyers, executive director of the Fort Lee Film Commission, said. "This is the state that gave birth to the American film industry."
The Film Commission's film archive will move from the Fort Lee Museum to the new film center, which will be part of the second tower of The Modern, which is nearly completed. The commission's relationships with other film archives and museums - such as the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City - will let it borrow collections to showcase aspects of film industry such as women filmmakers, Meyers said.
"This is important to us as Alice Guy Blaché, who built Solax Studio in Fort Lee, is the first woman director and filmmaker and made hundreds of films in Fort Lee," he said.
In addition to the exhibits, Meyers said the center will offer programs to teach film making, including a "boot camp" for students and working with interns from programs such as the NYU Costume Studies Program and Moving Image graduate program.