YELLOW SPRINGS, Ohio — When the Little Art Theatre set out to land a $100,000 grant to fund a elegant brand-new marquee, with a nod to its century-long history, the relaxing Ohio arthouse theater had some talented aid.
Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Steve Bognar is a local of Yellow Springs, the bohemian college town inbetween Columbus and Cincinnati where the theater is a downtown component. Besides being one of Little Art’s mostsignificant fans, Bognar is an supporter for little independent theaters allover as they battle to endure in an market now controlled by home streaming.
The eight-minute video Bognar directed and shot for the theater’s grant application set out to show simply what its loss might imply to individuals, neighborhoods — even society as a entire.
“The reality that this film theater is smack in the middle of town, it’s like the heart of our little town,” he stated in a current interview.
Bognar, who with the late Julia Reichert won an Oscar in 2020 for the function documentary “American Factory,” started the video with some 100 various timeless movie titles flashing past on the Little Art Theatre’s existing marquee. He then folded in interviews with regional citizens, who recollected about their preferred films and moviegoing experiences.
It wasn’t lost on the documentarian that such common experiences are endingupbeing progressively unusual, as increasing home and charter school registrations piece school populations, in-person church presence falls and whatever from shopping to dining to dating moves more and more online.
“If there was one general style that emerged,