The birthplace of US cinema, New York City, has continued to play an enormously influential role in its evolution - particularly in the realm of the more personal, 'independent' film-making of figures from Sam Fuller to John Cassavetes to Spike Lee.In this issue of Projections Tod Lippy, founding editor of Scenario magazine, talks with a number of New York film-makers about why they have chosen to live and work in New York as opposed to Hollywood. Amid in-depth discussions of each person's work, a portrait emerges of the rich relationship between the individual's creative impulses and the dynamism and diversity - or 'bleeding energies', as Susan Sontag once put it - of New York City.Interviewees include Spike Lee, Jim Jarmusch, Wes Anderson, Nora Ephron, Tim Robbins, John Pierson and many others.