Low attendance combined with low prices are leaving Patricia Theatre owner Ann Nelson worried about the fate of the theatre’s Cinematheque Art Film series.
Over the last seven years the Patricia Theatre has been screening films beyond the mainstream for two nights and one matinee showing every week for around eight weeks in the fall and spring. The series focuses on foreign, indie and Canadian films that would not be able to sustain a full week of screening and would not otherwise be able to be screened in the theatre.
The series has featured dozens of critically acclaimed movies from around the world during its runs, including Academy Award Best Picture winners No Country for Old Men and The Hurt Locker. Other notable films screened during the series have been Milk, An Inconvenient Truth, Precious, There Will Be Blood, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Winter’s Bone and Another Year, among many others.
Each film costs money to bring in for rental and shipping costs, which are the same regardless of whether a film is screened for a week or two days.
For the past two years the series has been losing money and Nelson has been having to subsidize the films out of her own pocket because attendance for even regular mainstream films at the theatre has been down 20 per cent this year.
For every art film that Nelson brings in, about 80 people come to watch over three screenings, which does not bring in enough revenue to support the costs associated with the screenings.
“The Patricia itself is at risk, it’s definitely at risk,” said Nelson. “I’m passionate enough about it and committed enough to it to give it every bit of my Canada pension every month, but I can’t also...support the [art] film series...There’s just so much good stuff we could be bringing in, but we can’t if we can’t pay for it.”
Provincial increases to the minimum wage forced Nelson to raise prices on regular fares and now she is considering whether it might also be necessary to raise the price for the art film series, which is currently $7.50 for everybody, regardless of age.
Nelson said that unless attendance goes up she will either have to raise the price by one dollar and see if that helps her break even or perhaps stop offering the series.
“We’re all very conscious of our isolation here and most of us embrace it,” said Nelson, “but there is a downside and the isolation means that we don’t have access to as much cultural variety and stimulus as we would other places...so it’s a huge thing to me not to be able to continue to offer that...I think it’s a real important part of our social fabric.”
So far this year Nelson has booked one film for the series, Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, which has been receiving overwhelmingly positive reviews and stars Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams among a notable ensemble cast. The film is running at 7 pm on Wednesday, September 21 and Thursday, September 22 and for a 1:30 pm matinee on the Thursday.
Beyond that film Nelson isn’t sure how she is going keep the series going. Nelson said she is also looking at whether to continue with the eight-week, one-film-a-week series or whether to offer one alternative film choice a month, or one every other week. If revenues do not increase she may not be able to offer any art film choices at all.
Any suggestions from the public on how to handle the situation are welcomed by Nelson, who can be reached through the theatre’s website.
