For the devoted film fan, movie theaters are sacred spaces.
Not just the “movie palaces” of old — most of which, if they still stand, have been renovated into performance halls (like Salt Lake City’s Capitol Theatre) — but any place where movies are projected onto a screen for an audience to watch, laugh at, cry with and otherwise bond as a community.
People make memories in movie theaters and mark important milestones there. Some people get married in them. (My wife and I did, at the Tower Theatre, 20 years ago this month.)
We get protective of these spaces. They are a place to escape into someone else’s story for a couple of hours, to take refuge from the ills of the outside world. They are our home away from home.
So when we hear about something bad happening in a movie theater, it hits us a bit harder than usual. And that’s been happening recently at a couple of the nation’s independent movie houses.
First, there’s the case of The Cinefamily, a Los Angeles institution, where movie lovers see cult classics, silent films, live events and other cool stuff. News broke in August that two of Cinefamily’s top executives — co-founder/executive director Hadrian Belove and board vice president Shadie Elnashai — had resigned abruptly, after staff members accused them of sexual harassment and sexual assault.
The accusations shocked the L.A. film community. Brie Larson, the Oscar winner and an advocate for sexual-assault survivors, was the most high-profile person to speak out.
Cinefamily’s board suspended all theater operations in late August and hired an outside firm to investigate the allegations. A hotline has been established for anyone wishing to “provide information in a safe and secure manner that might be relevant to the independent investigation.”
Cinefamily’s efforts to deal with the issue — whether one calls it “damage control” or a sincere effort to make amends — have been tidy and behind the scenes. The same can’t be said for what’s happening at Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse.
The Austin story started almost a year ago, when Devin Faraci, then the editor of the film-criticism site Birth.Movies.Death (which Alamo Drafthouse owns), tweeted about the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, mocking then-candidate Donald Trump for his vulgar boasts. A woman asked Faraci, on Twitter, if he remembered once grabbing her in a manner similar to The Donald’s brag.
Faraci tweeted that he didn’t remember the incident (the details of which the unidentified woman has not disclosed), but “I can only believe you and beg forgiveness for having been so vile.” He soon resigned from Birth.Movies.Death, and it was assumed he would fade away and the Austin film community would move on.
It turned out Faraci hadn’t gone away. Earlier this month, people noticed his byline attached to program descriptions for Fantastic Fest, the popular film festival for genre films, which ended Thursday at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin.
Tim League, Alamo’s CEO and co-founder of Fantastic Fest, acknowledged that he hired Faraci back to write copy, at first anonymously. In a statement that acknowledged the “discomfort” of some Alamo patrons, League said in a statement, “I am very much an advocate for granting people second chances, and I believe that Devin deserves one.”
The howls of protest were fast, loud and angry. One of Fantastic Fest’s main programmers resigned in protest, decrying the “boys’ club” mentality at work. Fox Searchlight pulled a film, Martin McDonagh’s “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (which deals with issues of sexual assault), from the festival’s lineup. Three days after his first statement, League put out another one — this time saying that Faraci had resigned permanently.
Last Saturday, as Fantastic Fest was underway, another bombshell hit. Kate Erbland, a writer for IndieWire, reported the story of Jasmine Baker, who accused Harry Knowles, the influential Austin movie blogger and the festival’s other co-founder, of sexually assaulting her at an Alamo Drafthouse event back in 1999 or 2000. Knowles denied the accusation.
Again, reaction was swift. The majority of the members of the Austin Film Critics Association voted him out. Three contributors to his website, Ain’t It Cool News, quit. Knowles announced he would be stepping aside from AICN, leaving the site in the hands of his sister.
With Faraci and Knowles, the first accusations were followed by others coming forward with similar allegations of bad behavior. This follows a pattern my Tribune colleagues have seen in their coverage of sexual assault on college campuses: Once one person went public, others who thought they were alone realized they weren’t.
Operators of America’s independent cinemas have been paying attention to what’s happening at Cinefamily and Alamo Drafthouse. Organizers of the Art House Convergence, an annual meeting of theater owners in January (just before the Sundance Film Festival) at the Zermatt Resort in Midway, have announced plans to make sexual harassment and sexual assault important topics of conversation.
The stories in L.A. and Austin are a reminder that the places we want to think are safe are not safe for all. They can be safe, and must be made safe, and the first step is to listen to the voices of those being put in danger.