How Bazar bringing back “Movie Night Mondays” starting August 29
BY HOPE LEE
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The low whirring sounds coming from a screen projector echo through clothing racks and vibrant art as the opening credits of a film start to play on the wall.
The How Bazar will be bringing back their “Movie Night Mondays” under the direction of Isaac Grossman starting August 29 at 7:30 p.m.
Grossman, a senior telecommunications major at UF, will be revamping the “Movie Night Mondays” series the brand originally started in January to make the recurring event more sustainable and social. “There isn’t a solid film community outside of the university,” Grossman said. “I was really excited when movie nights started happening, and I wanted to see it expand more.”
The doors will open at 7:30 p.m., and the movie for the week will start playing at 8 p.m. Grossman said this will give time for people to mingle and get comfortable within the space.
There will not be an admissions fee for any of the nights.
He also said that there will be a different non-alcoholic specialty drink every week for people to purchase. The How Bazar also has a full bar for those who want to purchase an alcoholic drink, and there will be a variety of snacks ready for purchase as well. For example, Papo’s Pop Shop will have a concession stand of rare and exotic snacks.
The original “Movie Night Mondays” series was started by Jose Peruyero, one of the five co-owners of the How Bazar.
“Once we moved into our current space, each owner wanted to share a little piece of who they are and what they’re passionate about to the community,” Laila Fakhoury, another co-owner of the How Bazar, said. “For Jose, that was the film world.”
Fakhoury said that Peruyero curated the weekly movie series so the How Bazar could showcase beautiful, unique, and international art films in the communal environment. She said Grossman would show up to almost all movie nights, and the rest of the co-owners all saw how much he enjoyed having a space like that to talk about films he has never been exposed to before.
Grossman said that he and Peruyero will be working together to curate which movies they will show. “Jose has a much deeper knowledge about films than I do,” Grossman said, “We connected a lot through talking about the film world and wanted to share what we have experienced together.”
Grossman said he wants the series to grow to a point where people feel comfortable enough to express what they took away from the film they just watched. “It can be intimidating to show a film that’s not traditional,” Grossman said. “We don’t want people to not come because they’ve never heard or seen a certain genre of a film before.”
The first movie that will be shown is “Shaun of the Dead,” a 2004 comedy film about zombies. “Selfishly, I wanted to show this movie for the first Monday because it’s my favorite one,” Grossman said.
Grossman said he also wants to keep the store functional while the movie is playing. There will be Bluetooth headphones available so the viewers can focus on the movie while other people can walk into the store and still shop around without being distracting to the viewers. The headphones will better immerse people into the movie experience, said Grossman.
The How Bazar became official in August 2020, with its store being set up in the Seagle Building. A year later, they moved from the Seagle Building to their location at 60 SW 2nd St.
“We are a worker-owned brand representing curated and ethical fashion, providing a physical space to serve as a creative and cultural hub for the community,” Fakhoury said.
The store sells up-cycled vintage clothing as well as its own branded clothing line and opens up the space to support local artists and minority communities.
The How Bazar is open from 11 a.m.-11 p.m. from Thursdays to Mondays.
Grossman discovered the brand after going to one of their local night markets at the Seagle Building and started to connect with the owners of the brand and with members of their joint record label company, Dion Dia.
“I didn’t get to experience local art as much as I would have wanted to in my hometown as I have here,” Grossman said,. “The people at How Bazar are all about giving back to the community and they really treat you as a friend.”