Focus Features

Brooklyn is the place that Focus Features’ It’s Kind of a Funny Story calls home, and for a number of reasons. Firstly, the movie was shot in the hip New York borough, in the neighborhoods of Bay Ridge, Crown Heights and Wyckoff Heights as well on the Brooklyn Bridge. Also, Brooklyn is where the highly successful creative team behind the movie, writer-directors Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, live, while Funny Story funnyman Zach Galifianakis and the writer of the young adult novel that inspired the film, Ned Vizzini, are also former Brooklyn residents. To read more about how this Brooklyn-steeped movie came together, check out The Making of It's Kind of a Funny Story.

Brooklyn wasn’t always Brooklyn, as it were. Initially, it was a Dutch village that was first settled in the 1640s called Breuckelen; the name over time morphed from Breuckelen to Brooklyn (via Brockland, Brocklin, Brookline, and Brookland!). Brooklyn’s Dutch origins are still discernible in many now-Anglicized neighborhood names (Bushwick, Midwood, New Utrecht and Flatbush, for example), while the official Brooklyn motto is still “Een Draght Mackt Maght,” which is old Dutch for “In Unity There is Strength.” In 1898, Brooklyn found further strength when it ceded its status as an independent city to become a borough of New York City.

Manhattan may be more famous as a New York movie location, but Brooklyn is and always has been an extremely popular place for filmmakers to shoot. Back in the 1910s, Coney Island – then dubbed the “playground of the world” – was the setting for movies like the Fatty Arbuckle comedy Fatty at Coney Island and Mack Sennett’s slapstick At Coney Island. Now, Coney Island and neighboring Brighton Beach are the regular inspiration for contemporary filmmaker James Gray, writer-director of film like Little Odessa. In Made in Brooklyn: A Slideshow of Films about Brooklyn, Peter Bowen looks at these films and more as he casts an eye over Brooklyn’s movie history. Plus, in Inside Hal Ashby's The Landlord, an extract from Being Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood Rebel, Nick Dawson chronicles director Hal Ashby’s experiences shooting his 1970 movie The Landlord in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood.

It’s Kind of a Funny Story’s writer-directors Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden are a prime example of Brooklyn filmmakers made good, however they are far from an isolated case. The borough is not only a hotbed of talent, but has an impressive array of organizations which provide education and support for up-and-coming film talent. Scott Macaulay, an New York-based film producer himself, casts an eye over the resources and facilities available in the borough – from the DUMBO-based Independent Filmmaker Project to Steiner Studios in Brooklyn Navy Yards – in The Young Person’s Guide to Filmmaking Resources in Brooklyn.

Brooklyn is the largest borough in New York, and it has its fair share of savvy film lovers who, increasingly, can satisfy all their moviegoing needs without crossing the East River. Cool movie theater venues is a definitely a growth industry in Brooklyn: outdoor exhibition series such as Rooftop Films and Movies with a View have become highly popular, while films and food collide at the hip new venues indieScreen and the reRun Gastropub Theater. Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, an arts venue that’s been in existence almost 150 years, recently added movies into the mix. Nick Dawson looks at these and more interesting places to watch films in Brooklyn Exhibition Spaces.