The building
The Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center has stood on 16th Street NW since 1925, a civic landmark a short walk from Dupont Circle.
The hall
140 seats, DCP, and a proper dark.
Cafritz Hall is the cinema inside the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center: a retractable-seat room built for film and music, programmed year-round in Dupont Circle.
The hall opened as a state-of-the-art concert and cinema venue for JxJ, the EDCJCC’s film and music program. It holds 140 people in a room of about 1,800 square feet, with theatrical DCP projection, 7.1 surround sound, and Dolby servers. That is the whole point: one screen, tuned.
Cafritz Hall Cinema presents a weekly theatrical slate — new studio openings alongside films still earning their holdovers — with tickets sold online and seats assigned at the hall, and a box office that opens forty-five minutes before the first show. The listings on this site refresh from our dated calendar: when a coming-soon title reaches its opening day, it becomes a now-showing film without anyone lifting a finger.
We are a program of the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center, not a multiplex. You will hear the street on 16th when you leave. You will not hear a neighboring auditorium during the feature.
Seats
140
Room
~1,800 sq ft
Projection
Theatrical DCP, 2K / 4K
Sound
7.1 surround · Dolby servers
Seating
Retractable theater rows
Captions
Infrared devices & glasses
A short history
How the room got here
The hall
Cafritz Hall was built as a concert and cinema room for JxJ — film and music under one roof — with retractable seating so the floor can open for performance.
The cinema
Year-round theatrical programming now shares the room with festivals and rentals: one screen, DCP projection, and a 140-seat dark that feels like a secret.
Programming
The weekly board mixes wide openings with films that still have an audience in a 140-seat room. Family titles land earlier in the day. Horror and epics take the late slots. Open-caption screenings are marked OC on the showtimes board.
JxJ and community programs still use the hall. When the cinema slate yields a night, you’ll see it on Events — or it simply will not appear as a public showtime.
What we ask of you
Arrive with time to find your row. Silence the phone. Keep the aisle clear. If you need a captioning device, take one — they are part of the house, not a special order. The dark is the point.