FilmScene celebrating decade of nonprofit cinema in downtown Iowa City

Andy Brodie knew how to run a cinema. Documentary filmmaker Andrew Sherburne knew movies.

Both knew Iowa City had a serious gap in film offerings. Together, they decided to fill that gap.

And thus, the frames for FilmScene began rolling out in 2011, when they filed papers with the IRS, saying they intended to establish a nonprofit cinema in downtown Iowa City.

But they knew they had to widen their circle to make it happen.

“It took a few years to figure out how it was going to work — to get some people behind it, come up with the plans, to find a space, raise some money, figure out how it would all work,” said Sherburne, now 44, of Iowa City. While Brodie has since moved to New York City, Sherburne said he “still follows us from afar. He’s an important part of our history.”

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“From the very beginning, we knew it was only going to work if other people wanted to be a part of it,” Sherburne noted. “We recruited a bunch of friends in the arts and in the community to sit on our initial board of directors. We bribed them with cookies. And it was just one step at a time, one foot in front of the other from there.”

Opening

All those baby steps, including a $90,000 crowd funding campaign, led to the opening of FilmScene on the Ped Mall on Thanksgiving weekend 2013. Several initiatives are planned to celebrate the 10-year milestone, including a birthday party from 4 to 6 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 3, at FilmScene’s second location at the Chauncey, 404 E. College St.

Ironically, “All is Lost” was the first show on the single screen in the restored 1850s Provisions and Packing Building at 118 E. College St. All was not lost for the fledgling theater, and audiences flocked to see Robert Redford’s solo show as a man lost at sea after his boat collided with a cargo ship.

“It’s a movie that I think is really most effective in the cinema,” Sherburne said. “You have to be lost in that world. The sound design is really important. It’s a slow moving movie — it’s that kind of movie that if you start watching it at home, you’re going to start thinking of what chores you have to do, and whether you have to put on the laundry or go get a snack or check the phone.

“It’s a great example of a film that works when you are willing to just be taken away by cinema and turn your devices off. Just focus your attention. So in that sense, it’s a movie that belongs in the cinema.”

And people kept coming.

“We were kind of blown away,” Sherburne said, noting that 27,000 people came through the doors in FilmScene’s first year.

“It was a lot for a single screen. We had one screen that sat 65 people, so there were a lot of sellouts in those early days, which made it fun. It created a buzz — it created an element of like, you have to be there early, you have to get your tickets in advance.”

Fast-forward 10 years, and “we’re three times the size, and three times as many people come through our doors.”

The Ped Mall site added another screen in 2015, offering intimate 54- and 20-seat theaters, and the space was revitalized in 2021. A short walk away is the Chauncey, a state-of-the-art facility with three screens, which opened in the fall of 2019. Seating capacities are 117, 65 and 25 patrons. A half-acre outdoor cinema space, FilmScene in the Park, was added in 2021.

The scope of films has diversified over the years, to include first-run popular titles as well as indie films.

“We see ourselves primarily as a home for adventurous and challenging films: independent films, documentaries, foreign films, films that are oftentimes more the work of independent artists and visionary directors,” Sherburne said.

“But we also now are playing with five screens. We go big and we go small. … We can put a really small, tender film in a 20-seat theater, but we can also play ‘Barbie’ or ‘Oppenheimer’ in our biggest theater and fill that place up, and everybody can experience what it’s like to see big cultural touchstone films on the best picture and sound in the area, with us.

“We embrace popular cinema as long as it meets our artistic standards. We want to be proud of anything that we put on our screens, but there’s plenty of popular filmmaking that fits that mold.”

Looking ahead

From surviving the pandemic with member donations, curbside movie snack sales and private screenings to adding an outdoor screen, holding filmmaker conversations, offering summer animation camps for kids, collaborating with other events in the city, and recently adding a film festival, FilmScene has grown by leaps and bounds in its first decade.

With 75,000 people buying tickets, 3,000 flocking to movies in the park, and 1,000 more at other events, Sherburne thinks attendance totals will “creep up to nearly 80,000 this year.”

The budget has grown, too, from about $370,000 the first year, to about $1.8. million this year, Sherburne said. And the staff has grown from fewer than 10 to more than 30, many of whom are part-time workers.

“Just like a lot of 10-year-olds, we’ve grown into our body a little bit — we’ve reached our full height maybe. But, I think strengthening our connections with the community is probably the most important thing that we can do,” he said.

“We have an incredible wealth of programming that we’re already doing. That doesn’t mean we might not add some programs, but we show over 450 unique films every year, which is a lot. …

“We’re doing just about everything that we want to do. But I think we can make our connections so that we can invite more people in to be a part of that wonderful programming that we put so much time into. We’re trying to figure out ways that we can get more young people in here — students with the Iowa City Community School District, trying to create partnerships there. … It’s so important to make sure that young audiences are cared for, because that’s the future. …

“(And) strengthening our connections with the increasingly diverse communities, making sure that everybody sees themselves represented on screen and in the stories that are told here, so it feels welcome here. Making sure that we don’t just sit and wait for people to come to us — that we need to go out there to the community and create those connections. So I think that’s what we’re gonna be busy doing in the years ahead.”

Comments: (319) 368-8508; diana.nollen@thegazette.com