YELLOW SPRINGS, Ohio – When the Little Art Theater decided to secure a $100,000 grant to fund a sleek new marquee paying homage to its centuries-old history, the cozy Ohio art theater had some talented help.
Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Steve Bognar lives in Yellow Springs, the bohemian college town between Columbus and Cincinnati, where theater is a downtown attraction. In addition to being one of Little Art’s biggest fans, Bognar is an advocate for small independent theaters everywhere, as they fight to survive in an industry now dominated by home streaming.
The eight-minute video that Bognar directed and filmed for the theater’s funding application was intended to illustrate what its loss could mean for people, communities — even society as a whole.
“The fact that this movie theater is right in the middle of town is like the heart of our little town,” he said in a recent interview.
Bognar, who with the late Julia Reichert won an Oscar in 2020 for the documentary “American Factory,” began the video with about 100 different classic film titles playing across the current Little Art Theater marquee. He then conducted interviews with locals, who recalled their favorite films and cinema experiences.
It is not lost on the documentary filmmaker that such community experiences are becoming increasingly rare as charter homes and schools emerge. registrations fragment school populations, in-person church attendance falls and everything from shopping to dining to dating is increasingly online.
“If a general theme emerged, or a sort of guiding idea, it was that a movie theater, a small town movie theater, is like a community center,” Bognar said. “It’s where we come together to collectively experience it, like a piece of art or a community event or a local filmmaker showing their work.”
Among other events Little Art has hosted over its 95-year history are the Dayton Jewish Film Festival, the 365 Project for Juneteenth, and a Q&A with Hiroshima survivors.
Bognar’s video did its job. Little Art won the grant, the first Theater of Dreams award from streaming media company Plex. The company is using its grants program to celebrate other independent entertainment entities, as a poll conducted last summer with OnePoll revealed that two-thirds of respondents believe the closure of independent cinemas would be a huge loss to society. .
“This collective experience of sitting in the dark and just feeling, telling a story and feeling it together is beautiful,” Bognar said. “We don’t do that enough now. on our screens individually. We watch films individually.
He believes that people share energy when they watch the same film together, adding a sensorial dimension to the experience.
“We feel more in tune because we are surrounded by other human beings who are going through the same story,” he said. “And that’s what a theater can do.”
The theater plans to use the donation to replace the boxy Little Art modern marquee with the more streamlined art deco design that hung over its box office in an earlier era. The theater opened in 1929.
“We found an old photo of our tent from the 1940s, early ’50s, and that’s when it all happened,” said Katherine Eckstrand, the theater’s director of development and community impact. “And we said, this is it — this is the marquee. We want to go back to our past to bring us into our future. So that’s where it all started.”
Bognar, 60, said it’s the same theater where he was inspired as a young man to become a filmmaker.
“Some of my most profound and cherished historical experiences in my entire life took place right here in this theater, where I was swept away by a great work of cinema,” he said. “And that’s what I aim to create for the audience, you know. It’s incredibly difficult to get to this level, but I love swimming towards this shore.”
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