Aaron Simms is the founder and executive producer of Inwood Art Works, a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating and curating professional performing and visual arts in the Inwood neighborhood and surrounding communities of Northern Manhattan.

Simms established Inwood Art Works to serve as a community hub for local artists and to address the lack of venues for theater, opera, dance, music, and film in the area, which he describes as an "artistic desert".

Inwood Art Works is a nonprofit organization with a mission to create and curate professional performing and visual arts in Inwood and its surrounding community.

Our vision is to establish a dedicated cultural arts destination that fosters a vibrant multicultural community nourished by local connectivity and sustained by artistic equity.

We value encouraging positive social engagement, goodwill, and unity through live theater, music, dance, film, new media, and visual arts within accessible proximity at affordable prices or free of charge. We value and champion the craft and cultural diversity of local professional and emerging artists. And we value the education of youth through the arts.

With our Film Works (Inwood Film Festival, Film Works Alfresco), Art Works (Gallery), and Stage Works (Live N’ Local, Back Porch Show, Culture Hub) programs we hope to encourage positive social engagement, goodwill, and unity through live theater, music, dance, film, new media, and visual arts that are easily accessible and affordable — often free of charge.

The Inwood Film Festival celebrates and showcases the Inwood community through the moving image, presenting independent films made in the neighborhood or by Inwood-based filmmakers.