I have directed film programs for almost 40 years. My degrees were in 18th and 19th century American Literature, but I realized very early in my academic career that my true passion was international cinema.
As an immigrant from Poland teaching writing at a rural Georgia college in the 1980s, I missed good cinema, especially foreign and arthouse films, so, together with a senior colleague (who became a lifelong friend), we launched Cinema Arts Program, a weekly campus film series which ran continuously for 21 years, until 2008. For years, both of us also directed an inter-disciplinary Film Studies Program.
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I moved from Statesboro to Savannah in the late 1990s, around the time SCAD launched its now nationally recognized annual film festival, but the city had no year-long film program or series.
In 2003, desperate for access to regular indie and international releases, a small group of us formed a non-profit film organization, Reel Savannah, of which I was a programming director. Initially, we screened films at the Lucas Theater, but after SCAD acquired it and priced us out, we rented one of the Victory Square theaters. When the group fell apart in 2008, I decided to establish my own program, capitalizing on the audience we built up.
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That program, CinemaSavannah, has been screening films around town ever since.
From 2003 until 2022, I have brought about 400 new films combined (100 with Reel and almost 300 with CinemaSavannah) that, in most cases, would have never screened in Savannah. That is quite impressive considering the program never had a real home, moving from one location to another like a gypsy nomad.
I used Victory and Eisenhower Theaters (both defunct), JEA (Jewish Educational Alliance) Ballroom, black box theater of the old Savannah Cultural Arts Center on West Henry, Jepson Art Center Auditorium, and Muse Arts Warehouse until the building that housed it got sold and converted into high-end apartments.
Muse Arts Warehouse, which was primarily a live-theater venue, was the closest CinemaSavannah ever came to having a permanent home. It was also home for Jim Reed’s Psychotronic Film Society with whom I partnered on a number of special screenings. When Muse closed, we felt truly orphaned.
Skies got bright again with an opening of the new Savannah Cultural Arts Center four years ago. The Center’s friendly administration and its beautiful 300-seat Ben Tucker Theater is the best film venue I ever had.
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That CinemaSavannah not only persevered but grew through all those times is a testimony to our community’s need and support of it, to their belief in it. I didn’t have to give up, not even during the pandemic, because my audience wouldn’t let me and I always had people to help me along.
Without people like Jin-Hi Soucy Rand, Jim Reed, Harry Delorme, Debra Zumstein, Savannah Cultural Arts Center performing arts director David Higdon, my program would not have survived.
The promotion of my program on the pages of the old Connect Savannah by Jim Morekis and more recently by the fellow cinema aficionado, Zach Dennis, editor of Do Savannah and the arts and culture section forSavannah Morning News, have been instrumental to my success as a programmer.
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All that doesn’t change the fact that Savannah does not have an exclusive designated arthouse film theater. Most mid-size cities like Savannah, with rich cultural life and aspirations, have had an established marquee theater that shows foreign and indie films at multiple screenings, every week. all-year long.
We may get closer to that goal if we can negotiate a designated space at the new NCG Theater that has taken over the old Victory building. There is also renewed talk of bringing back special screenings to the Jepson Auditorium, but it has to be affordable for a small program like mine.
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Yes, I can continue to do what I am doing, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a free-standing theater where locals, studentsand visitors could catch new, non-commercial releases or discover older forgotten gems, participate in small festivals or special screenings and series, discuss the films, and enjoy a drink and some street food.
Who has the money and ideas to make that happen? Should it be privately owned and run, or can our city build and fund it?
I know that very sporadic SCAD Cinema Circle screenings won’t do. We need more.
Tomasz Warchol is the founder and director of CinemaSavannah, a local film programming organization that hosts screenings at a number of venues downtown. He was also a long-time professor at Georgia Southern University.
