Bronx-born, Italian-based filmmaker Abel Ferrara is a character and so is Cypriot independent movie theater owner Nicolas “Nick” Nicolaou. “I do it cause it combines two things I like to do,” Nicolaou says in Ferrara’s new documentary “The Projectionist.” “Make money and keep neighborhood theaters alive. Nicolaou was a mainstay in the 1970s Times Square adult film house scene, went on to get into the arthouse film exhibition business and has been in the New York theater business for decades. In Ferrara’s charming new doc, the filmmaker — no longer living in his beloved New York, but still intrinsically tied to it — chronicles Nicolaou’s life story, moving from Cypress, emigrating to the United States and then eventually making his way into the theater business with all the ups and downs that come with competing with major mainstream theater chains. Nicolaou currently owns and operates Manhattan’s Cinema Village, Bay Ridge’s Alpine Cinemas & Forest Hills’ Cinemart.