38 | APRIL 30 • 2020 

awards ceremony, Gardner 
was introduced to Sfire, who’
d 
won an award the previous 
year as part of the feminist 
filmmaking collective Final 
Girls; she was looking to start 
a theater as well.
Today, Gardner and Sfire 
describe their partnership in 
similar terms. Over coffee, on 
a bright, chilly afternoon at 
Oloman Cafe pre-pandemic, 
Sfire said they make a good 
yin and yang. She values his 
holistic approach to program-
ming and ability to curate a 
balanced slate of works span-
ning languages, cultures and 
authorial perspectives, repre-
senting without tokenizing. 
“He’
ll do an entire grouping 
of Korean cinema to show 
the balance of what that 
means, so there isn’
t just one 
movie representing an entire 
country,” she said. The same 
principle goes, she said, for 
LGBT-centered works and 
films by women. 
“Josh is not a bro,” she 
said, laughing, when asked 
about the role of gender in 
their partnership. “He may be 
more of a feminist than me.” 
Sfire’
s grandfather, who 
emigrated to the U.S. from 
Lebanon, started working 
at Eastern Market at age 11 
before learning English. He 
then started a string of gro-
cery stores, eventually coming 
to own seven across Detroit 
and Birmingham. Lara still 
works in Detroit real estate 
development with her fam-
ily and brings what she and 
Gardner both describe as 
a more business-minded 
approach. 
Though the Film Lab is the 
first business Sfire’
s started 
herself, having a hand in 
development and growing up 
around entrepreneurs helped 

her grasp that bumps are 
expected in any business. 
“I never know what the 
hell is going to happen,” she 
said of what lands with audi-
ences. Specifically, she recalls 
a screening of Bong Joon 
Ho’
s cult-favorite class satire 
Snowpiercer, which she and 
Gardner programmed when 
they couldn’
t book the direc-
tor’
s newest, Parasite, near 
the height of its Oscar cam-
paign. Expecting a small, ear-
ly-30s male turnout, she was 
shocked to find their space 
packed with middle-aged 
women. 
“It’
s never what you think 
it’
s going to be, and so it 
always ends up being really 
fun,” she mused. “I love being 
wrong.”

A BRIDGE IN HAMTRAMCK 
Despite the Film Lab’
s mis-
sion of cultural exchange, 
reaching across audiences — 
even in its own small, dense 
neighborhood — can some-
times be a challenge. Though 
Hamtramck’
s often thought 
by outsiders to be a Polish 

community first, Polish-
descended Americans now 
represent only a fraction of its 
population, having migrated 
over several decades to sub-
urbs like Madison Heights. 
Meanwhile, Hamtramck’
s 
become majority-Mus-
lim, rich in Yemeni and 
Bangladeshi shops and 
restaurants. Its residents 
speak more than 40 lan-
guages, according to a 2019 
Hamtramck Review article. 
Countless communities 
co-exist alongside an exten-
sive network of bars and arts 
spaces; it’
s the rare Michigan 
neighborhood in which res-
idents can walk to work or 
school. 
According to Gardner, the 
neighborhood stood out for 
its sense of community and 
how well its makeup suits it 
to the Film Lab’
s mission.
“We’
re focusing on world 
cinema, and there’
s such rich 
cultures here from all over 
the world,” he said. 
Bridging Hamtramck’
s arts 
scene and immigrant commu-
nities has always been a pri-

ority for the founders. With 
their focus on world cinema, 
Sfire expresses a shared desire 
to “show films that appeal to 
everybody,” though not in 
the Marvel manner. Drawing 
people in, she said, is “how 
we’
ll get to know the commu-
nity, and then they’
ll probably 
tell us what they’
re interested 
in.”
In time and once 
re-opened, the founders plan 
to expand their space into a 
two-screen theater with a full 
food and beverage program. 
Sfire hopes in time that Film 
Lab’
s expanded space will 
serve filmmakers and become 
a hub for productions and 
classes.
“It’
s nice to feel wanted,” 
she said of opening a busi-
ness in Metro Detroit, “and 
also that you might actually 
be able to do something that 
makes a difference.”
But diversifying their 
audience has remained a 
challenge. The Film Lab 
offers drinks, but many of its 
Muslim neighbors abstain 
from alcohol. 

Arts&Life

’
d 

rt 

n

The Film Lab’s 
audience is “never 
what you think it’s 
going to be,” 

— LARA SFIRE, THE FILM LAB 
CO-FOUNDER

continued from page 36

