What to Expect from Iowa City's New Downtown Movie Theater

Local filmmakers Andrew Sherburne and Andy Brodie love the creative community in Iowa City.

But as they traveled to other towns to show and view work at film festivals, they couldn't help but notice that something was missing.

"Iowa City just doesn't have that dynamic location devoted to film that a lot of those other towns had," Brodie said. "It has a lot of potential to be a really great film town, but we feel like that potential has gone underdeveloped."

The pair's solution to remedy this problem-- the nonprofit organization Iowa City FilmScene-- got a big boost at Tuesday night's council meeting when the council approved the future presence of a downtown movie theater to be run by FilmScene in the old Vito's space being renovated by developer Marc Moen.

This approval was despite the fact that theater will be allowed to serve food and alcohol at the location, when the original restrictions on Moen as part of the city helping to fund the renovation project was that the space should be used for retail and not as an eating and drinking establishment. These restrictions were intended to break up the domination of the downtown by bar after bar.

The city councillors, however, amended this restriction, allowing FilmScene to serve catered refreshments, such as beer, wine, or coffee drinks, as part of the experience at the theater.

The co-founders these refreshments are part of their goal to make the theater space a welcoming area where film buffs and casual movie lovers alike can hang out and discuss cinema.

"It's 2012 and movie goers demand more of a robust movie going experience than they did in the past," Sherburne said. "We want to provide them something that is really worth coming out for."

Brodie said the approximately 75-seat capacity, single-screen theater will be a two to three year transition phase before the organization reaches its eventual goal of having a two screen location, which it may need to build on its own. In the meantime, Moen will continue to look for a retailer to fill the space.

The goal was to start serving the film community before that final solution arrives.

"We didn't want to wait three years (to start the two-screen location) before we could have a physical location in Iowa City," Brodie said.

The physical location will be located in the first floor of the Vito's building, with the second floor occupied by the officers for an engineering firm called Modus Engineering. Although many of the details are still being ironed out, Brodie said he expects the projector to be true high-definition digital, projected onto a screen approximately 20-feet in horizontal width. The sound will also be top notch, he said.

"As a film organization, the quality of the image and sound will be paramount for us," Brodie said.

As for the film selection, Brodie and Sherburne said the theater will primarily show independent films, foreign films and documentaries that can't be found in mainstream theaters found in the nearby malls. The theater will also be able to run movies based on themes and genres, such as horror movies or science fiction or specific directors.

Brodie said there could be some overlap with mainstream movies, especially if they are requested by attendees. The main goal he said was to not duplicate the offerings of the larger theaters most of the time.

Sherburne said FilmScene intends to work with the student run Bijou Theater, which also runs many of these off-the-beaten path films, to provide a robust selection for both theaters without stepping on each other's toes. He said although FilmScene supports the Bijou, it also intends to be the 365-day a year venue for catching movies downtown that the Bijou is unable to be as a student theater.

Sherburne said the ultimate goal of all this is to plug into the local film community, and to build up the appreciation of film as an art form.

"It's a very powerful art form, and the fact that we could present it to people in the community to be appreciated as a shared experience is an important thing," Sherburne said.

Brodie said as a first-run theater, the FilmScene space will get films as soon as they are released, with some potential delay due to the size of Iowa City's market size compared to larger cities.

As a nonprofit, similar to the , FilmScene will also perform educational outreach about film in a way to increase film awareness, and work toward the goal of finally strengthening Iowa City's film scene.

Brodie and Sherburne said they hope the theater will be able to open before next year begins, potentially in December.