Outside the Waldbaum’s supermarket, a man was selling bootleg DVDs of movies still playing in movie theaters. Earlier that day, a woman walked through the Pizza Hut I was lunching in, hawking similar ware. Once upon a time, I would never have been tempted to purchase a pirated DVD, but I must confess the urge was there because some films up for an Oscar this weekend have never made it to Staten Island.

“Brokeback Mountain” has been enjoying a healthy run here because of the gay cowboy hype, but “Transamerica,” about a pre-op transsexual, has yet to be shown. “Capote” finally made it here a few weeks ago. However, it lasted only two weeks and one of those weeks the film was scheduled for only two evening showings. Theater owners and distributors have confirmed that they book only movies that will attract large audiences, and “art” films rarely perform well at the box office, especially here in Staten Island. Pardon me while I take umbrage at that allegation of provincialism.

I’m a native Manhattanite who cut my movie-going eyeteeth in small art theaters like the sorely missed Thalia on West 94th Street, which charged only $1. The Apollo Theater on 42nd Street was a treasure chest of foreign classics as long as you didn’t pay too much attention to the man with the trench coat on his lap three seats down. …And you call me unsophisticated?

The reality is that Staten Island is rapidly changing, with a growing influx of Brooklyn and Manhattan natives who are demanding more than the standard blockbusters shown in the megaplexes. There is a strong market for the small independent films, although the venue for showing such films is still to be discovered. I have long hoped that some cinephile investor would buy the Paramount Theater on Bay Street and convert it into a screening room for independent films. This theater showed the first film Tom Hanks ever made, “He Knows You’re Alone.” I’ve also been told that Mary Pickford once appeared at a premiere here in the 1920s.

Presently, the only possible option for this new film audience is the renovated St. George Theatre, which will be the opening site of the upcoming Staten Island Film Festival on June 1. This gem of a movie palace was lovingly restored to its Art Deco glory and currently presents a variety of entertaining family spectaculars like “Pippi Longstocking,” “Clifford the Big Red Dog,” and more. Musical presentations are also scheduled, including Johnny Maestro and the Brooklyn Bridge and Air Supply. I’m booking my reservation to see Jackie Mason on April 1 and that’s no joke. For their schedule see http://www.stgeorgetheatre.com.

What is not widely known is that Staten Island has a long history in the film industry. Many silent films were shot here, including segments of classics such as “Birth of a Nation” and “The Perils of Pauline.” Silent-film star Mabel Normand was born here and starred in several Keystone Kops short features, filmed on South Beach. Staten Island once had two movie studios: Fred Scott’s Movie Ranch on Sand Lane in South Beach, which operated from the 1890s to 1914; and the Biograph in West Brighton, which opened in 1906 and closed in 1922. Stapleton Studios operated briefly here in the Navy Homeport until the Bloomberg administration halted it, and I still don’t know why.

The Island has always been disguised as other locations, and perhaps that has perpetuated the impression that we are a backwater borough. In “Splendor in the Grass,” starring Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood, our Travis district became Kansas. We’ve stood in for Vermont numerous times because there are so many stretches of tree lined roads here. The Greenbelt in summer resembles the Adirondacks.

The recently released film, “Freedomland,” starring Samuel Jackson and Julianne Moore, was filmed on the grounds of the old Seaview Hospital, not Willowbrook as some lazy writer wrote in a tabloid review of the film.

I have yet to see “Capote” nor have I seen “Transamerica,” another film I was interested in because I regard Felicity Huffman as a very fine actress. I will just have to wait for their DVDs to be released … legitimately, of course.

The theaters are a business and I have no objection to their owners operating them strictly on a profit basis. I would like to suggest, however, that there is a market for a more intimate film environment that’s not being cultivated. If certain arty films have not been successful when they were booked here, it’s probably because they were pure “garhbarge,” not because they were over our heads. When it comes to the movies, Staten Islanders are way ahead of the curve when it comes to taste.