PORTLAND, Maine — Screens are everywhere. Internet-connected phones, computers, tablets and televisions are ubiquitous. You can call up nearly any movie ever made, throw on a pair of headphones and escape into your own world, alone. The visuals are perfect and the sound is pristine.
That’s such a shame.
At least it is to the folks at Kinonik, a movie-screening nonprofit dedicated to the communal film-watching experience. They think there’s real value in sitting down in a darkened room full of strangers, watching the same, imperfect film whiz by at 24-frames-per-second. The projector’s clack, the occasional stutter and scratch — even that hair that dances around the frame — are all part of what the organization calls “the true magic of cinema.”
Kinonik was formed four years ago from the ashes of The Movies on Exchange Street. Since it closed a decade ago, the city hasn’t had a full-time art house movie theater. Kinonik’s all volunteer staff shows both feature and short films from a growing collection of 16mm film reels. Currently, the films are shown at SPACE and St. Lawrence Arts in Portland.
Judging by the number of Portlanders flocking to the screenings — as many as 70-80 people — there’s a real thirst for this kind of film experience.
To find out more, BDN Portland met Kinonik board member Peter Weed at the organization’s climate controlled storage space, where the films are housed.
Q: How many films do you have in the collection now?
A: About 500 and we just got a big batch from Johns Hopkins University. They were deaccessioning. Nobody was really using them. They were just taking up space — oh, and Queens College in New York. We got a small collection from them, also. The new influx pretty much doubled what we had.
Q: Where did your original collection come from?
A: They were Juris Uban’s original collection — about 250 films. It was a mix of feature films and shorts. He taught at the University of Southern Maine. Juris would show them in the classroom and he was also just a collector. The films were at his house and he wanted a home for them, and he wanted them taken care of, too. They have to breathe, and the temperature and humidity have to be right.
Q: Who is coming to see your films?
A: One of our key goals is to introduce millenials to a communal film experience.
Q: Is that working out for you?
A: Yeah it is. It’s not all gray hairs. You know, you go to some cultural events in Portland and it’s people of a certain age. This has been a good mixture. And we’ve done a couple small things for kids.
Q: I understand part of the shared experience of seeing one of your films is the talkback time at the end.
A: Yes, and what’s been surprising is the level of knowledge we’re getting from the audiences. They bring things to the conversation, too, these aren’t just “talking-tos.” They’re conversations… and if you’re home, you’re not getting that. People aren’t filling in blanks and putting things in artistic context — and historic context, too. Films are full of homage. You can really see the DNA, and people add to that in the conversations.
Q: Your next film, “Double Indemnity” is a talkie but aren’t you showing silent films as well?
A: The films that we’re showing at the St. Lawrence Arts center, those are silent films accompanied on piano by one of our board members, Carolyn Swartz. She writing the scores for these things. That’s performance art as well as film. She’s an exceptional player. The audiences are responding really well.
Q: Stay with me on this one: I collect old 78rpm records. They don’t sound great and you can get much of the same music on iTunes with fewer pops and crackles. But there’s something about having an analogue, physical representation of the air that these old musicians moved while making these sounds. It’s like touching the past for me. Is it similar with film? I mean, the light that bounced off these old actors, went through the lens and struck the film — and what you’re showing is an analogue copy of that original negative. So, these films are physical manifestations, dragged directly through time and then reconstituted via projected light on a screen. It’s like some kind of magic, I think. Or maybe that’s too kooky?
A: Yes. You trace these right back to that in-camera negative. There’s an unbroken lineage for these. None of our films have had any kind of digital manipulation or manifestation.
Q: That blows my mind.
A: Yeah.
Kinonik’s next film is the noir classic “Double Indemnity,” directed by Billy Wilder and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray. The film plays at SPACE on Congress Street in Portland on March 11, at 7 p.m. Tickets are $8. They can be purchased in advance or at the door.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
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