Dec 1, 2024
International Film Festival Tour Concludes
Nov 30, 2024
Next Steps, Milestones, and the Documentary
Nov 8, 2024
Your Cinema Needs You in Australia
Oct 17, 2024
International Film Festival Tour Expands to 25+ Cities
Oct 4, 2024
The Oldest Surviving Cinema in Stockholm, Sweden
After a year of film festival screenings for my documentary, Your Cinema Needs You, including two of which that took place in Sweden, I made a point of visiting the oldest still-operating movie theatre remaining in Stockholm. This is the Zita, a small, but beautiful art house cinema that first opened in 1913. What can I say? All of the research about old cinemas that went into the production now has me actively searching them out on my travel shoots.
Sep 5, 2024
Searching For Hollywood's Oldest Cinema
With the film festival tour for my documentary, "Your Cinema Needs You" and some of my travel shoots overlapping this year, I've made a point of searching out old cinemas in a lot of the different places that I've been going.
In Los Angeles, a city full of incredible theatres, I thought it would be interesting to find the oldest cinema in Hollywood. This lead me down a bit of rabbit hole.
For starters, until Hollywood was incorporated into Los Angeles in 1910, the town had regulations specifying no theatres. Once incorporated, this changed quickly. The first cinema built in Hollywood in 1910 was called the Idyl Hour, which was later renamed the Iris Theatre, however the location changed several times in just a few short years. A very familiar story.
With only a few images and an old fire map to go on, the theatre would've been located on prime real estate on Hollywood Boulevard. Unfortunately, when I went to see what was there today this is what I found - an empty lot with a direct view of the Hollywood sign.
The cinema had been defunct since the 1920s and the name moved again, but I was curious if the building had been repurposed or modified. What makes this location special is just how many incredible cinemas are still in the area.
Grauman's Chinese Theatre (now the TCL Chinese Theatre) is just a few blocks away and in addition to still hosting movie premieres to this day, it's endured as one of the most famous movie palaces in the world. Quite the contrast from where the Iris began over a century ago.
Each of these detours makes me further appreciate what was uncovered in making the documentary about Medicine Hat's Monarch Theatre. It's a fascination about how much has changed, what's been left to find, and that through it all that little cinema back in Medicine Hat has survived when so many others didn't.
Aug 7, 2024
Another Best Documentary Win For the Monarch Movie
Jul 15, 2024
Your Cinema Needs You: RIFFA Nomination
Jul 12, 2024
Hometown Series & Documentary on CKUA Radio
This morning my interview with Grant Stovel on Alberta Morning went live on CKUA Radio.
We had a great chat about my Hometown Series currently on display in the Tumbleweed Project Space at the Esplanade in downtown Medicine Hat, and about my documentary on the Monarch Theatre, Your Cinema Needs You. You can listen to the interview embedded below. My thanks again to Grant Stovel and CKUA for reaching out and highlighting these projects.