TACOMA, Wash. — When the coronavirus closures hit, Philip Cowan, the executive director of Tacoma's non-profit The Grand Cinema ran the numbers and realized he had no choice. He'd have to lay off every single employee, including himself.
“It's really hard,” he said. “I mean we are a very tight knit staff. We are really family.”
A family that deeply believes that a big bucket of popcorn and watching a movie with an audience in the dark would always better than streaming at home.
But the coronavirus has turned everything upside down.
“Well the hope for us is obviously to reopen as soon as we can,” Cowan said. “But we just want to keep connecting with people.”
That’s why The Grand has launched a virtual screening room on its website. Streaming at homes has become the surprising new way to support your local theater.
Clicking on the virtual screening room tab leads you to a selection of movies. When you choose a movie, you are linked to a specific web page built by the film distributors specifically for The Grand, where you can rent the movie and watch it on a device that supports streaming video.
Screening a movie will cost $12. Half of that goes to The Grand.
“A lot of the movies that we are playing are ones that were on our upcoming schedule,” Cowan said.
There's the suspenseful Polish drama Corpus Christi, recently nominated for an Academy Award for best international film. There’s a documentary called Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band.
And there's the German film Balloon.
“It's a drama based on people trying to escape from East Germany in a hot air balloon,” Cowan said. “It's a really entertaining movie. Highly recommend that one.
The Grand Illusion Theater and the Northwest Film Forum in Seattle and Pickford Film Center in Bellingham are also offering virtual screening rooms on their websites.