The Bay Area movie lovers keeping community cinema alive

As demand for outdoor film events grew during the pandemic, Those Guys this summer created the free and outdoor “Films with Friends” movie crawls. The group persuaded local businesses to participate, with unique lists of films curated for each showing. 

The events have grown to draw bigger and bigger crowds — and Schmitt said he’s been “taken aback” by the overwhelming turnout and positive response. 

“We’re also looking to show films that are not exactly the normal Hollywood thing,” he added. ”We want to do short films or independents, things like that.”

Those Guys have so far shown few signs of slowing down. The team plans to keep the event free to the community by covering costs to outfit different spaces for showings and rent equipment, co-founder and filmmaker Nanci Gaglio said.

“It’s our first season, and we’re sort of working out the kinks,” Gaglio said. She noted that some bars are more difficult to outfit for screenings. 

Dominic Angerame, an award-winning filmmaker and film studies instructor including at University of California Berkeley, serves as Those Guys’ film curator. 

Angerame picks the films for each month’s program and helps the participating venues present them. As most local theaters often show the same big-box releases, he said it’s important to him to offer screenings of films that can rarely be found elsewhere.

When local theaters close down or don’t offer opportunities to show hyperlocal or experimental films, local artists have nowhere to go to show their work, Angerame said. “It’s extremely frustrating when you make movies and nobody gets a chance to see them.”

“My role is to bring some of the best cinema that we can to the citizens of North Beach, as well as in bringing in experimental avant garde films to the community as well,” he added. “We hope to present at least two avant garde filmmakers in person, showing their work and talking to the audience, in our next season.”

Across the San Francisco Bay in Oakland, the local film scene has faced similar changes — and seen a similar community response. Many Oakland cinema lovers mourned in 2009 when the historic Parkway speakeasy theater closed on the east side of Lake Merritt. 

Its replacement, The New Parkway Theater, opened in 2012 in the nearby Uptown district. A neighborhood targeted by city leaders for redevelopment for years, today the theater is surrounded by coffee shops, hip restaurants and new apartment buildings. 

General manager J. August Caesar said he wanted to keep the theater’s unique style, a place with a full bar and restaurant where people can see both new releases and local or obscure features. He soon found investors willing to support that vision.

“I think a lot of them invested for heart reasons, not head reasons,” Caesar said. “We are a beloved institution.”

These days, New Parkway serves a role similar to its counterparts in San Francisco, bringing community members together to relax and enjoy a movie. The theater offers a range of showings, from big-box hits to indie films to so-bad-they’re-good features.

On Wednesdays, the theater holds pay-what-you-can movie nights. Twenty percent of proceeds go to local nonprofits. 

“People are looking for connection,” Caesar said. “They’re looking for community experiences.”

The theater rooms at New Parkway are filled with adopted old couches and every style of chair imaginable, including decommissioned salon chairs and bar stools gathered around donated diner tables. There is also an upstairs cafe, where on some nights people gather for Dungeons and Dragons or “Draw and Sip” events. 

Caesar credits the theater’s full kitchen and bar service with helping to keep the venue successful. He encourages other aspiring community theater owners to find a way to serve food to moviegoers to help offset high operating costs.

As someone who names films like “Past Lives” and “Titanic” as among his favorites, Caesar prides himself on not being a cinephile. Instead, his goal is to show accessible films that appeal to a wide range of the community.

“It matters more to make an experience very different from the moviegoer’s home,” he said. That translates into bigger turnout — and more revenue — for the now-thriving theater.

Back in San Francisco, film buffs like Those Guys co-founder Rob Schmitt may disagree on the merits of indie vs. mainstream films.

Like Caesar, though, he shares a dream of bringing the rapidly gentrifying Bay Area together through good movies. 

Pundits have wrung their hands over the supposed decline of San Francisco — but historic neighborhoods like North Beach are “doing better than the national press has said,” Schmitt argued. He argues community events like the group's movie crawl are part of the city’s pandemic recovery effort. 

Going forward, Schmitt hopes such events continue to grow. He has no plans to stop showing experimental and arthouse films. After all, he said, the community is full of film buffs who remember the days of locally-based auteurs like Francis Ford Coppola.

Like in those days, San Francisco residents now will have a way to enjoy film together. “The best way to see a movie," Schmitt said, "is with a bunch of people."

Follow @nhanson_reports

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