Connectivity: Only in Theaters

Only in Theaters (2022) , a film by actor/director Raphael Sbarge, is an intimate and moving journey taken with the Laemmle family, spanning nearly three years of challenges, losses, and personal triumphs. Laemmle Theatres, the beloved 84-year-old arthouse cinema chain in Los Angeles, is facing seismic change and financial pressure. Yet the family behind this multigenerational business—whose sole mission has been to support the art of film—is determined to survive. With appearances from Cameron Crowe, Ava DuVernay, James Ivory, Nicole Holofcener, and Allison Anders, Only in Theaters is a state-of-industry film, a love letter to cinema for a general audience, and an irresistible story of a multi-generational American family. Documentary participant Greg Laemmle and filmmaker Raphael Sbarge joined moderator Ross Melnick (Interim Dick Wolf Director of the Carsey-Wolf Center) for a post-screening discussion of Only in Theaters and the future of arthouse cinema. Greg Laemmle is the CEO of Laemmle Theatres, a group of family-run arthouse movie theaters in the Los Angeles area. Laemmle Theatres was established in 1938 by Greg’s grandfather and great uncle, Max and Kurt Laemmle, who were German Jews who escaped Nazi Germany and came to California to work for their cousin Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal Pictures. Max is credited with bringing foreign film to Los Angeles and was awarded the French Legion of Honor for supporting the French New Wave. Greg is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a rare honor for a theater owner, for his lifelong commitment to supporting the art of filmmaking. Raphael Sbarge has been a working actor for more than five decades. He has performed extensively on stage and appeared in five Broadway shows. He has appeared in many films, including Risky Business, My Science Project, Vision Quest, Pearl Harbor, Independence Day, and The Exorcist: Believer. His recent credits include The History of Sound with Paul Mescal, Friendship with Paul Rudd, and the HBO series Task with Mark Ruffalo. His new projects include a highly anticipated prequel to The Boys, called Vought Rising, as well a new Bosch prequel. Raphael is an Emmy Award-winning and nominated director, and his feature film Only in Theaters played over a hundred theaters around the country to critical acclaim. Raphael and Greg co-host a filmed podcast called Inside the Arthouse, with almost 500K subscribers and 3.4M views, focused on in-depth conversations with some of the world’s most successful filmmakers. Ross Melnick is Professor of Film and Media Studies at UC Santa Barbara and Interim Dick Wolf Director of the Carsey-Wolf Center. He was named an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Film Scholar and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow for his book Hollywood’s Embassies: How Movie Theaters Projected American Power Around the World (Columbia University Press, 2022) . He is the author of American Showman: Samuel ‘Roxy’ Rothafel and the Birth of the Entertainment Industry (CUP, 2012) , co-editor of Rediscovering U. S. Newsfilm: Cinema, Television, and the Archive (AFI/Routledge, 2018) , and co-author of Cinema Treasures (MBI, 2004) . His research has appeared in Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Film History, The Moving Image, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, and in numerous other journals and edited collections. This event is sponsored by the Carsey-Wolf Center. The Carsey-Wolf Center’s 2025-26 feature series Connectivity examines the evolving meaning of connection in our contemporary moment. While the term “connectivity” often invokes our ever-increasing entanglement with digital infrastructure and social media networks, this series reimagines the term not only as a technical feature of media, but as a humanistic value and a condition of social and public life. This series embraces connectivity as a framework for thinking critically about the ways in which people use media to connect with ideas and with one another, from the shared experience of moviegoing to the collective bonds forged through storytelling and public dialogue. The Carsey-Wolf Center is committed to screening documentaries from across the world that engage with contemporary and historical issues, especially regarding social justice and environmental concerns. Documentaries allow filmmakers to address pressing issues and frame the critical debates of our time.