SARAH  E.  S.  SINWELL

Art House Project

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This project addresses the ways in which independent and art house theatres across the United States have responded to technological and industrial trends to help improve the quality and effectiveness of community-based art house cinemas in the digital age. Since 2016, I have conducted more than thirty interviews with media industry professionals at the Art House Convergence Conference in Midway, Utah and the Salt Lake Film Society. To date, the footage includes interviews with such film professionals as Ira Deutchman (Co-Founder and Managing partner of Emerging Pictures, a New York-based digital exhibition company) and James Schamus (co-founder of Good Machine and CEO of Focus Features), as well as programmers, development officers, executive directors, film bookers, and various other film professionals in the art house community. By examining art house audiences, marketing strategies, community-driven programming, alternative technologies, industrial practices, and content (such as pop concerts, opera broadcasts, sports events, and Broadway shows), this project studies how art house theatres have employed a variety of strategies for success as a means of both competing with and differentiating themselves from the multiplex. I have now completed a teaser based on this footage entitled American Art House which has been published in The Projector: A Journal on Film, Media, and Culture with the long-term goal of grant writing and fundraising for a future documentary series.