The Spaces Between Grassroots Documentary ... - Ezra Winton

Cinema du Parc, which announced closure shortly after my interview with Davis (it has
since re-opened as a non-profit with new ownership and a new mandate). (Personal
Interview, 2006, p.1)
Whatever the motivation behind their programming, it is most intriguing that
AMC works with community groups to arrange discount screenings/events, has a
feedback system for “clients” (a.k.a. audience members) to suggest titles (LeRoy tells me
that 20 people requested What the Bleep do We Know (dir., Arntz and Chasse, 2004),
prompting the theatre to screen the documentary), and programs more diverse fare than
its direct competitors in the megaplex market. This is all reason enough to include the site
in this research, as borders and fences blur between grassroots and commercial in
initiatives like Film Circuit, commercially-oriented chains like AMC present intriguing
cases for the commercial/community relationship that, in the case of the Kansas City
company, is clearly commercially top-heavy.
When localized sites of responsive construction to media hegemony and/or
homogeneity develop, they are often – despite popular rhetoric of ICT networking and
the “digital commons” – firmly planted in on-the-ground locations, accountable and
responsive to on-the-ground communities with social and cultural investments in the
specific media projects. Following this, the fundamental difference between commercial
and community oriented cinema d/e sites is found in the linkages between the screens, the
participants/audiences, the programmers, and the managers/managers. Tracing these
linkages with initiatives like Cinema Politica or Film Circuit brings the researcher to
multiple communities where proximities between the above elements are close. For
example, the Film Circuit group in Kindersely, Saskatchewan is comprised of local
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