Metrograph Announces Edo Choi as Film Programmer
The former Associate Curator of Film at the Museum of the Moving Image and Senior Programmer of the museum’s annual festival First Look begins at the esteemed Lower East Side theater immediately
Photo credit: Mettie Ostrowski [hi-res]
New York, NY // June 3, 2025 Metrograph, New York City’s celebrated Lower East Side repertory and first-run cinema, announces today the hiring of Edo Choi as Film Programmer. Choi was most recently the Associate Curator of Film at the Museum of the Moving Image and begins at Metrograph immediately.
A New York-based film programmer, projectionist, and critic, between 2014 and 2019 Choi worked as a projectionist and then programmer for the Maysles Documentary Center. From late 2019 to early 2025, he was the Assistant—later Associate—Curator of Film at the Museum of the Moving Image, as well as the Senior Programmer of the Museum’s annual festival First Look, which celebrated its 14th edition in March.
“I have been an admirer of Edo’s work as a programmer for years; his great sensibility and taste as a curator, the depth of his research, and his interest in sharing and contextualizing both the history of cinema and its future. He has the unique ability to make film history feel alive and urgent, and I am excited to welcome him to Metrograph and work with him to further expand the scope of Metrograph’s repertory and new release programming,” said Inge de Leeuw, who joined as Director of Programming in 2022.
Across his varied rolls, Choi has curated and organized retrospectives of Cary Grant, Jim Henson, Agnieszka Holland, James Wong Howe, Manfred Kirchheimer, Terrence Malick, Michael Mann, Sergei Parajanov, Kelly Reichardt, Hiroshi Shimizu, Woody Strode, and Edgar G. Ulmer, as well as surveys of the New Taiwan Cinema, the post-classical American western, and French cinema after the New Wave.
“As an avid filmgoer and native New Yorker, I can still remember the mixture of local pride and greedy anticipation I felt when Metrograph opened its doors almost ten years ago. Since then, I’ve had more indelible moviegoing experiences in its theaters than I can count. Metrograph is where I first saw key films by Eustache and Garrel, Woo and Kwan on the big screen. It’s an honor and privilege to work alongside Inge and our consummate programming team in service of one of the most engaged and discerning film audiences in the world,” said Choi.
For Metrograph, he is quickly leaving his mark on the curation as the lead programmer on the theater’s monumental Mikio Naruse: The World Betrays Us series. Presented by Metrograph and Japan Society and co-organized by the two esteemed theaters alongside Japan Foundation, New York, Mikio Naruse: The World Betrays Us is a two-part 30-film retrospective—presented entirely on rare film prints imported from archives and collections in Japan—on the 120th anniversary of his birth. The series runs from May 9 – May 31 at Japan Society, continuing at Metrograph from June 5 – June 29.
Additional programs he’s spearheaded at Metrograph include Scenes from the “End of History,” Freddie Francis: Cameraman, and Glauber Rocha: Of Hunger and Dreams.
About Metrograph
MISSION
Metrograph is the ultimate destination for movie lovers. A special curated world of cinema inspired by the great New York movie theaters of the 1920s and the Commissaries of the Hollywood Studio backlots, Metrograph is a community inhabited by movie professionals screening their work, taking meetings, watching films, collaborating together—an audience built around our shared love of cinema.
METROGRAPH
Metrograph is an entertainment company founded in 2016. Our projects to date include Metrograph NYC, our Manhattan movie theater at 7 Ludlow Street, which also houses our Bookstore and The Commissary restaurant and bar; Metrograph At Home, a streaming service that brings our signature curation to a national audience; Metrograph Editions, a producer and curator of books on cinema, limited edition prints, apparel, and beyond; the newly launched print publication, The Metrograph; and Metrograph Pictures, an independent distribution company started in 2019 centered around Metrograph’s signature curation.
PRESS CONTACT
Kaila Hier
kaila@metrogaph.com