Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Sunday, November 3 | Doors: 4:00pm | Screening: 5:00pm | $5 Tickets 

With the presidential election scheduled for next month, we wanted one more opportunity to celebrate the Season of Friendship with a screening of the quintessential “humans and aliens can be friends” flick: Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It’s a reminder that if we can befriend the aliens, we can befriend anybody, no matter how alien they seem to us. 

Before the film screening, the Young People’s Chorus of New York City and the Washington Heights Community Choir will perform a newly arranged vocal interpretation of the iconic “conversation” between humans and aliens from the movie's climax—a rendition that, to our knowledge, has never been performed vocally before. 

Following the screening will be a brief discussion between investigative reporter Leslie Kean and Joel Kady, founder of Future Folklore, about the parts of the movie that accurately reflect the reality of the UFO phenomenon. We will then open this up to a Q & A with the audience to explore the bigger questions evoked by the film. Leslie and Joel are both Washington Heights residents.    

The 1977 sci-fi Oscar winner explores how humans would respond to alien contact through the lenses of shady government agencies, an Indiana electric lineman, and a single mother. 

Details:

Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Teri Garr. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Written by: Steven Spielberg, Hal Barwood, Jerry Belson 

The movie runtime is 2 hours and 18 minutes, Rated PG, and will be screened on DCP. 

Close Encounters of the Third Kind continues the Movies at the Palace Season of Friendship. We chose that theme after asking ourselves what we need most to get through 2024. Our supporters and fans helped us select the movies in the series, including Little Women (2019), which is scheduled for December 15. 

Please note: The Season of Friendship is a different series than Movies at the Palace with Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is not scheduled to be at this screening. 

The Young People’s Chorus of New York City (YPC) is a multicultural youth chorus internationally renowned for its superb virtuosity, brilliant showmanship, and innovative model of artistic excellence and diversity that enriches the community. Founded by Artistic Director Francisco J. Núñez, a MacArthur Fellow and Musical America’s 2018 Educator of the Year, YPC’s mission and values are deeply rooted in providing children of all cultural and economic backgrounds with a unique program of music education and choral performance. It is committed to empowering its youth and providing pathways to success through the arts so that each child, no matter what race, gender, socioeconomic background, or religion can reach their full potential. Among YPC's many awards is America’s highest honor for youth programs, a National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award, which was presented to members of YPC at the White House.  

Washington Heights Community Choir
The Washington Heights Community Choir (WHCC) is a no-audition community chorus that provides adults of all ages and abilities who love to sing the chance to connect and create with others who share the same passion. We aim to foster creativity, uplift spirits, strengthen community bonds, and introduce new audiences to a diverse range of choral music. To learn more visit washingtonheightschoir.org.

Leslie Kean is an investigative journalist and the author of the New York Times bestseller “UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record.” Her over two decades of investigation and mainstream coverage of UFOs were profiled in The New Yorker in 2021. Leslie and reporter Ralph Blumenthal have contributed articles to The New York Times on UFOs/UAPs for seven years, beginning with a 2017, game-changing front-page story about a secret Pentagon UFO program. Their 2023 reporting for The Debrief on former senior intelligence officer and whistleblower David Grusch led to an open Congressional hearing on UAP. Leslie also works with Break Thru Films; they just completed Season 2 of the documentary series "UFOs: Investigating the Unknown” for National Geographic. In addition, she has co-authored a play dealing with the existential ramifications of UFO disclosure, described by a leading Broadway producer as “’12 Angry Men’ meets ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind.’” Leslie resides in Washington Heights and participates in UFO/UAP conferences and meetings all over the country.  

Joel Kady is a Washington Heights neighbor originally from the Seattle area who founded Future Folklore, a tech-focused community of founders and researchers exploring the big questions surrounding other intelligent life. He's also a legal technology consultant who started his career as a business analyst in Dubai, then worked on scientific computing as a research faculty member at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, and worked as a minister in NYC. 

The ornate United Palace opened in 1930 as the Loew’s 175th Street Theatre, a deluxe movie theatre and vaudeville house, the last of the five Wonder Theatres in New York City and New Jersey. Its first act as a movie theatre ended in April 1969 with a screening of “2001: A Space Odyssey.” 

With a groundswell of community support and our good friend, patron, and neighbor Lin-Manuel Miranda, movies returned to the United Palace in 2013. Since then we have screened over 100 feature films, from world premieres (“In the Heights” and “Halftime” as part of the Tribeca Festival) to all-time classics (“It’s A Wonderful Life”), to community favorites (the documentary “Mad Hot Ballroom” about local school children winning a citywide dance contest). 

Our goal is to have the cinematic experience come alive for audiences too used to watching movies on their phones or TVs. 

One of our highest compliments came from Robert DeNiro who, speaking before a 50th anniversary screening of “The Godfather,” described watching a movie at the United Palace as: “The moviegoing experience doesn’t get any better.”