Although the Charlotte Film Society began its first series of foreign and classic films in September 1982, one ancestral line can be traced to the Mint Museum Kino series from the 1970s, originally shown at the Golden Circle Theater, later at Dana Auditorium on the Queens University campus. The Society’s birth had another lineage: the demise of the Visulite Theater after three tries in the 1970s and early 1980s as a venue for foreign and classic films. The latter two efforts by Hal Hinson, who subsequently moved to Washington , DC , to become a film critic for The Washington Post, and by an Ohio company that had a chain of foreign and repertory movie theaters in various states found the market too soft.
The Visulite, under the ownership of Robert Schrader, had been Charlotte’s art cinema house from the 1960s through the 1970s, occasionally flirting with Blaxploitation movies in the mid-1970s and X-rated films after the art house market cooled down.
A group of Charlotteans, including at least one involved in selecting Kino Series films, Marty Shapiro, decided to try to continue the art cinema tradition in Charlotte. This group included the first president, Howard Spector, Light Factory director, Glenda Gilmore, Roy Alexander, Penny Moore, Don White, Charles Johnson, and Everett Bowman, among others. They arranged with the brand new Queen Park Theater’s management, which included Robert Schrader, to show a series of films every three weeks or so from September through May, available by subscription (for $1.00 per film initially).
Early that Fall, the Film Society held a meeting at the Public Library uptown that drew several hundred film fans. After much discussion about the nature and future of the Film Society, the group affirmed the new concept that included showing films in a real movie theatre (instead of an auditorium), using 35mm prints instead of the auditorium 16mm prints), and screening twelve foreign and classic films per season. The original board decided that the Film Society would be self-sufficient and that the board members would receive no compensation for their service other than the pure pleasure of seeing new movies (such as Andrzej Wajda’s Man of Iron and, later Pedro Almodovar’s What Have I Done to Deserve This?) and classics (for example, Citizen Kane, 8 1/2, Exterminating Angel, Rules of the Game, and The Lady Vanishes) on the big screen. That service tradition continues into the twentieth year of programming.
The concept worked, and subscriptions sold out the first few years at the Queen Park. Films were shown at 5:00 PM on Sundays. By 1988, however, the Queen Park, which had been a second-run, dollar theater, decided to try first run screenings. A mutual agreement between the Film Society Board and Queen Park management ended the series at that venue.
Casting about for a new home, the Film Society finally landed Eastern Federal Corporation’s Manor Theatre, its “home” until the end of 2005. The first season there was actually half a season, starting January 1989 and ending that May. It also nearly broke the Film Society treasury because of new conditions, including nearly quadrupled costs (film rental, auditorium rental, shipping, publicity) to the Film Society. The Film Society Board actually requested donations from members to help keep the series afloat. Thanks to some subscribers’ generosity and the continuing popularity, albeit diminished (original 350 members dwindled to 250 or so, partly because of the capacity of the movie house screening rooms, after The Manor split its single large auditorium into two smaller rooms). Over the years the Film Society has had some help from sponsors (notably Creative Loafing newspaper, The Mint Museum Film Series, and WDAV radio) and, later, WFAE radio and VisArt video rentals.
Since the late 1980s, The Manor has been playing the role of Charlotte ’s art cinema house, although for short periods at times abandoning that role for commercial Hollywood products. The most drastic step in that commercial direction occurred in spring 2000 when Eastern Federal Management made an economic decision to run commercial product on both of the screens. The reason given was that 1999 had been a very poor box-office year in general, even worse for art films. Eastern Federal--especially Curtis Fainn and Trish Hammill--had been and continued to be supportive of the Charlotte Film Society, even during the lean box office times. Through the 1990s, membership (subscriptions) in the Film Society had stagnated, even though the Film Society offered additional screening times (first 9:15 PM Sunday, later adding 7 PM Tuesday, and even 12 Noon, Saturday). The audience for art films seemed to be diminishing for the Film Society offerings as well as for the regular art films at The Manor.
The Film Society continued its series through that Spring (2000), and when it appeared that The Manor was going to continue to run commercial films, board members created what was named the SECOND WEEK Series, which began in September 2000. The new programming concept called for four or five movies to be screened during one week of the month (starting on the second Friday of the month) on one of the Manor screens. It also engendered a more or less equal partnership between the Film Society and Eastern Federal Corporation. The new concept called for extensive mailing and paid advertising in local newspapers for the first time in Film Society history. It also helped nudge Eastern Federal to return to regular art film programming at The Manor.
The first year of Second Week programming, the membership in the Film Society more than doubled, and the mailings and advertising (as well as an appearance on FM 90.7 WFAE’s Mike Collins radio show) helped raise the profile of the Film Society. Members generally liked the increase in programming, but some complained that there were so many movies in one week that they would not be able to see all of them.
In 2001, Eastern Federal opened Movies@Birkdale, a sixteen-screen multiplex in Huntersville. In a joint effort to expand art film programming to North Mecklenburg County, the Film Society and Eastern Federal agreed to continue the Second Week program the following week at the Movies@Birkdale christening this continuation of programming, SECOND CHANCE. Members and the general public who missed films at The Manor had a second chance to see them at the Movies@Birkdale. Unfortunately, the SECOND CHANCE series did not draw enough of an audience and was ended in 2004.
Since 2002 marked the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Charlotte Film Society, we celebrated with a members-only (and some invited guests, including Eastern Federal staff and local film critics) party on October 17, 2002, at The Manor Theatre. A reception (hors d’oeuvres, popcorn, soft drinks, coffee, wine and beer) began at 6:30 PM, followed by a choice of two films beginning at 8: Tom Tykwer’s Heaven and Bloody Sunday.
Unfortunately for the Film Society, Eastern Federal sold its theaters to Regal Entertainment Group, the current owner, in the summer of 2005. CFS continued its SECOND WEEK programming through Fall 2005 in cooperation with the new owner. At the end of the year, however, Regal informed the CFS that we could no longer screen films at The Manor Theatre. Instead, Regal offered the use of its Stonecrest Cinema 22 for the SECOND WEEK series, which finally, after a great deal of difficulty in booking films, ran in March and April of 2006. As you might know or guess, attendance was less than adequate, and Regal decided to drop the SECOND WEEK series completely, so the Film Society was, once again, homeless.
Months of discussion and some negotiation finally resulted in a re-start of the Film Society's SECOND WEEK series, again in March and April, this time in 2007. Our new partner, Consolidated Movies, made its Park Terrace CInema Six available to the Film Society. Partly because of the long lapse of a year without programming, the March-April 2007 SECOND WEEK did not quite draw the hoped for huge crowds. Attendance was much better than the previous year's incarnation at Stonecrest, but relatively poor overall, despite a program that included the newly re-released and highly acclaimed Army of Shadows, The Aura, and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu.
We were able to resume our SECOND WEEK series September through November 2007 (see the SECOND WEEK Series page). We reduced to two the number of films screened in each SECOND WEEK program, which included Ten Canoes, Snow Cake, Mafioso, The Page Turner, 12:08 East of Bucharest, and Only Human.
We celebrated our twenty-fifth anniversary in November 2007, at The Park Terrace Cinema 6, with a screening of Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata, and with hors d'oueves and beverages. We also conducted a "town hall meeting" with the members who were able to attend.
In 2008, because costs were mounting, we decided to try our SECOND WEEKEND series, during which we showed one film twice a day, Friday through Monday, on the second weekend of each month (January-May). The series was relatively successful and would have continued, except that Regal Entertainment Group bought Consolidated Movies and did not allow us to continue the rest of the year. To its credit, Regal did convert the Park Terrace to one of its art cinemas and renamed it Park Terrace Stadium Six. Regal also sponsored a screening of Bottle Shock in November, complete with refreshments and discussion, and donated the proceeds to CFS. Since then, through mid-2009, however, we have been unable to convince Regal to allow us to use either of its Charlotte art cinemas for regular programming or for other special events such as the Bottle Shock event.
As a result, in 2009 the CFS Board decided to try something different. We will be screening one film a month from July through December in our new Saturday Night Cine Club series at our new venue, Theatre Charlotte on Queens Road.
FUN(?) FACTS
Over the years, some interesting, amusing, and controversial events have occurred in our programming. Part of a paragraph from our 1992 brochure suggests some of the controversy: "In response to your [members] comments, we scheduled movies with fewer Nazis and more comedy than last year, and pay homage to Satyajit Ray, who died earlier this year. We also plan an explanatory handout for each film in the series."
Our 1991-92 series must have been quite dark because the 1992-93 films included Poison, Edward II, Rocco and His Brothers, Pather Panchali, Rhapsody in August, Dark Habits, Delicatessen, Let Him Have It, The Hairdresser’s Husband, The Black Lizard, Hear My Song, and Eating. We had no Nazis, but the first five titles were not very funny! And for $2.25 per film, the subscription price was more than worth it.
This program suggests a controversy we had in the 1990s over films depicting gay or lesbian characters and encounters. A few attendees walked out of the screenings, and a few cancelled their subscriptions.
OTHER INTERESTING(?) FACTS FROM THE PAST:
We requested Márta Mészáros’ Women when the Queen Park staff was booking films for us. Instead of the Hungarian film, we got George Cukor’s The Women, a delightfuly comedy, but not what we wanted.
WFAE backed out of sponsorship in the early 1990s based on some of the controversial films we programmed.
An ice storm knocked out power to The Manor Theatre on January 7, 1996, forcing us to cancel screenings of I Am Cuba and re-schedule.
In 1995, Sankofa, an African-American film directed by Ethiopian native Haile Gerima (co-sponsored by the Afro-American Cultural Center , which brought Gerima to Charlotte ), drew such huge numbers we had people literally standing in the aisles.
A Wallace & Gromit collection brought dozens of families with small children to The Manor.
We often programmed a film for Super Bowl Sunday, as an alternate to football spectacle fever. One year, we scheduled the documentary about the famous 1958 gathering of jazzmen for a photo, A Great Day in Harlem, for Super Bowl Sunday 1996. We had some complaints about scheduling that particular film on Super Bowl Sunday.
In the summer of 1997, we presented a series of films, called "Summer Classics Revisited," which had newly mastered prints (Das Boot, The Big Sleep, The Wild Bunch, and Le Samurai). The series was mostly on a cash basis (although subscriptions were available, we sold only four or five).
Our top grossing film since the start of the Second Week programming remains East-West.
Fassbinder’s In a Year of Thirteen Moons probably ranks as the least favorite movie shown in twenty-five years.