August 21, 2025 - "Ghost in the Shell" (1995)
August Anime Festival
Our next free screening brings Mamoru Oshii's 1995 masterpiece to the Gold Theater at the Hewlett-Woodmere Library on August 21st at 6:30 PM. This film poses essential questions about consciousness and identity that feel particularly urgent as we navigate our own technological transformations.
As a thank you, anyone who attends the screening will be entered into a raffle to win an annual Criterion Channel subscription, timed perfectly with their new anime collection.
Following the screening, we'll be joined by Tes and Jim from the LI Comic Shop in Lynbrook, NY—our first corporate partner and kindred spirits in the fight for physical media culture.
They understand that comic culture and film culture exist on the same continuum. Their shop is a place where newcomers get the same respect as silver age collectors, and Wednesday new release days generate real excitement.
LI Comic Shop is a community laboratory for cross-media discovery—comic readers becoming film buffs, movie fans discovering manga, everyone understanding that great storytelling transcends format. The anime boom represents another bridge between our worlds.
Jim's a true believer who can explain how Akira changed everything, while Tes approaches anime with healthy skepticism—a dynamic that makes their conversations particularly rich. They've watched customers discover that anime films like Ghost in the Shell ask philosophical questions Hollywood won't touch.
Their insights will help us trace how visual storytelling evolved from panel to screen, how comics prepared audiences for cinema's possibilities, why physical media shops remain essential cultural spaces.
The Cognitive Film Society is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to cultivating film culture through educational programming and community engagement