![]() "And, we wanted this to happen for the community." None of them had experience screening or promoting films, "We just wanted to see a good movie," Brennan said. Given that Wilmington was a film industry town even then, "We said, 'This makes no sense,'" Brennan said. She said that Cinematique began with conversations between herself, former WHQR general manager Michael Titterton and the late Hilda Godwin, who owned a high-end dress shop downtown and was a great arbiter of the finer things.īrennan said they talked about being frustrated with reading and hearing about all of these great films that never made it to theaters in Wilmington. More: Cinematique history For nearly 25 years ILM's go-to art house, Cinematique, still evolvingĪt the time, Brennan worked at the predecessor to the Cameron, the old St. When Cinematique began in 1991, there were a half dozen or more movie theaters scattered around Wilmington and 20-some odd screens, and "it seemed like a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger was on every one of them," said Anne Brennan, director of Wilmington's Cameron Art Museum. Wilmington currently has three multiplex theaters with more than 40 total screens offering a variety of content. In 2023, she said, they're looking to "re-establish our audience." A brief history of Cinematique "COVID really hit the whole movie industry," Bradley said, noting that Cinematique took about a year off from showing films, although they did offer the streaming "Sofa Series" during the pandemic. In the past few years, of course, movie theaters in general have faced a host of unprecedented challenges, from the rise of streaming services to the pandemic, both of which have transformed the public's movie-going habits. For the past 15 years, she's also been the station's Cinematique coordinator, serving as a liaison to Thalian Hall and helping book films there as part of a long-standing partnership between two of Wilmington's top cultural institutions.īut while Cinematique's near-term future is set, the long-term outlook for showing art-house-style films on the big screen remains less certain, not just in Wilmington but nationwide. ![]() ![]() The love of movies is so much better felt in a room full of people," said Mary Bradley, development director for WHQR. It's been screening two-dozen-or-so movies a year there ever since. John's Museum of Art, which is now the Cameron Art Museum.Īfter starting at the old College Road Cinemas across from UNCW, which has since been torn down, Cinematique showed its first film at Thalian Hall in January of 1996. The film series was founded in 1992 as a partnership between public radio station WHQR and the old St. Seeing a movie at Cinematique, usually an art film, a foreign film or an Oscar-hopeful prestige picture, and talking about it with friends or random audience members afterwards is a ritual that's been playing out in Wilmington for more than 30 years. On this particular night the feature was "Tár," and the audience was treated to a tour de force performance by Cate Blanchett as a symphony conductor whose life spirals out of control, as well as to the film's immersive sound design and a curious, head-spinning ending that had people buzzing in the lobby afterwards trying to puzzle it all out. On a Monday evening last December, a crowd of maybe 100 people gathered at Thalian Hall in downtown Wilmington to watch a movie at Cinematique. The view from the balcony at Thalian Hall before a Cinematique screening in 2022.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |