No Picnic
New 4K restoration and 40 years on from its release date.

No Picnic

• 6.00pm, Sunday 23rd August, 2026 

Golden Age Cinema & Bar

Dir: Philip Hartman

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Watch the trailer below

No Picnic – 4K restoration and 40 years on from its release date. A vivid black-and-white love letter to New York City’s pre-gentrification East Village. No Picnic is an extraordinary time capsule of a neighbourhood alive with musicians, artists, poets, hustlers and dreamers. 

Macabee Cohn (David Brisbin) is a former rock musician whose glory days are behind him. Driving a battered Volkswagen bus, he spends his days servicing jukeboxes across the city while watching his beloved Lower East Side rapidly transform. As soaring real estate speculation, rent strikes and an influx of artists reshape the neighbourhood, Mac’s own life begins to unravel. When a mysterious woman in a striped dress briefly crosses his path, his search for her becomes an unexpected journey of self-discovery.

Premiering at the 1986 Sundance Film Festival, where cinematographer Peter Hutton received the Best Cinematography Award, Philip Hartman’s debut feature has become a treasured portrait of a vanished New York. Beautifully restored in 4K, the film features an unforgettable cast including David Brisbin, Judith Malina, Luis Guzmán, Richard Hell, Steve Buscemi and Ryan Cutrona, with a soundtrack featuring music by Fela Kuti, Charles Mingus, The Raunch Hands and Student Teachers.

Writer-director Philip Hartman was a central figure in downtown New York culture, co-founding the legendary Great Jones Cafe and later Two Boots Pizzeria. Drawing on the creative community that surrounded him, he crafted No Picnicas an authentic snapshot of the East Village at a pivotal moment in its history—before gentrification forever changed its character.