About the site

This site provides original reporting and commentary on the unfinished business of the Cinefamily collapse, on the men who accrue benefit and avoid accountability in the wake of that collapse. This website is an ongoing call for institutional responsibility, as well as a resource for journalists, regulators, Cinefamily members and creditors, and the L.A. film community.

Cinefamily is not the only place where institutional responsibility is in short supply. Across the economy, rich and powerful men retain their wealth and power — even in the face of public scandals — as they keep their heads down and attempt to weather the storm. For many, Cinefamily occupied a special place and its collapse was heartbreaking; this website therefore looks to its own small, weird corner of the world in its focus on institutional responsibility.

We provide news and analysis on all things Cinefamily— including the Silent Movie Theater, owners Dan and Sammy Harkham, and the rebrandings into Fairfax Cinema and Brain Dead Studios. We seek what the Cinefamily’s board originally promised: a credible and comprehensive accounting, victims heard, creditors paid, and a new approach to corporate governance and community accountability.

We persist because we believe the most radical idea is a long memory. So we pull public records and throw spitballs on a text-heavy and overly wordy website. We hope to honor the best of the Cinefamily ethos, operating independently and accurately, guided by curiosity, open exploration, and good humor.

CinefamilyAccountability is a repository of verified documents, and a clearinghouse of timely information. We hold ourselves to the same standards of transparency and documentation for reporting and for commentary. (Our standards are admittedly lower around maintaining a consistent authorial tone or sticking to either the first- or third-person.)

You can read more about this site’s author over here.

We have, and we really cannot stress this enough, no affiliation with Cinefamily, Fairfax Cinema, Brain Dead Studios, or the Harkhams. Website archives are over here.

We love letters! Get in touch with feedback or questions, tips or documents, cheers or jeers.