Sundance Cinemas: Robert Redford's New Way Of Going To The Movies - Page 2

Mr. Redford was enthused, and the three men founded a company called Sundance Cinemas, the object of which is to make the movie theater the renewed center of the film experience for the viewing audience.

There are now two such cinema complexes. The first was opened in Madison, Wisconsin at the Hilldale Mall. Nancy Klasky Gribler, Executive Vice President of Marketing for Sundance Cinemas, says that “we wanted a university town with an educated life-style, because we believe that these are the kinds of people who will come to our kind of cinema.”

The second venue is in San Francisco, a city with a substantial like-minded population. “We provide such a different atmosphere than that found in most movie theaters,” Ms. Gribler says. “No commercials running before the films. A very comfortable experience. Excellent food and drink. A much more adult experience. And great movies.”

The San Francisco Sundance Cinemas occupy the space formerly known as the Kabuki Cinema, in the Japan-town complex on O’Farrell Street. The complex contains eight screens, two small bistros and a full-service restaurant. The atmosphere when you enter the theaters is much more inviting than that of the current mainstream movie theater venue. Here there is no pre-packaged, industrialized, Hollywood-studio, mall/theme-park atmosphere with excessive noise, impersonal attention, great numbers of very over-priced snacks, and those market-driven movies - aimed at the 13-year-old demographic - that now seem everywhere and inescapable.

Not that Sundance isn’t conscious of the marketplace. Ms. Gribler is clear about the fact that making money is an important goal, and it shows in the mix of films that are on view here as of this writing: Sex And The City, Mongol, Love Guru, Indiana Jones 4, The Fall, You Don’t Mess With The Zohan, and Woman On The Beach. “And we have a distinctly unusual manner in going about that,” she says. “We provide people with something comfortable and welcoming. It’s a first-class experience... not just a Hollywood experience."

And how does the public feel so far? “The idea works,” Ms. Gribler says. “I’m the person in the organization who gets letters from patrons, and many people write just to describe the experience in one of our theaters. It’s almost always a very positive response.”

The San Francisco International Film Festival is the longest-running such event in the Americas, and Graham Leggat is the Executive Director. “Paul Richardson has always been a friend and partner to the local San Francisco film culture,” Mr. Leggat says. “And we very much liked Sundance’s idea of how to present films. The old Kabuki complex was the home of the San Francisco festival for many years, and it seemed a natural for us to continue there after Sundance had taken over. So Sundance and The Film Festival decided to forge a similar relationship with each other. Sundance Cinemas is the ideal location for us, and our being there was very good for Sundance. Our patrons got a very valuable personal experience with the extra services that Sundance offers, and this year we sold 60,000 tickets to festival events there.”

Article Author: Terence Clarke

Terence Clarke is a San Francisco novelist, journalist, and film maker who writes about the arts.

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