The Engine Theater

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laweeklybestof | Los Angeles, CA | 71 Reviews

At first glance, it's a rusted tower crane. Perhaps something dredged up from the ocean, an artifact of some lost city in some displaced future, like Mad Max's Atlantis. Unlike any projection system Los Angeles has ever seen, the Engine Theater is 1,000 pounds of illuminated oxidized-steel sculpture that rotates to hold a 17-by-10-foot film screen. Built by Silver Lake–based filmmaker Burke Roberts and his Bizzurke Army collective to answer what Roberts saw as L.A.'s lack of independent screening venues, the Engine is a portable movie theater designed to fit into a number of indoor and outdoor spaces, turning any environment into a motion-picture venue. Since its 2007 debut at the Architecture and Design Museum of Los Angeles, the Engine Theater has traveled to giant outdoor music and art festivals like Burning Man and Coachella, as well as private parties and über-hip downtown L.A. events, like this year's HARD New Year's Eve, where it screened Daft Punk's film Electroma. Never in one place for long, the Engine's home is where it parks its trailer. The Engine may have taken 4,000 man-hours to create, but for Roberts and the artists that make up the Bizzurke Army, screening in and around L.A. is only the beginning of the theater's potential. Roberts sees the Engine Theater as having unlimited touring capabilities, like a punk rock band that travels city to city to play gigs wherever, and to whomever. Currently you can find the Engine at Studio 1636 art gallery, in Hollywood, where Roberts hosts weekly screenings of independent films from around the world.—Erin Broadley