When word began to spread this summer that a scrappy group of diehard young film fans was attempting to save an historic, century-old screening room micro-theater in Oklahoma City, the local community showed up.
Sure, their $100,000 objective was a bit of a pipe dream, but that lofty goal and the team’s sheer love, respect, and excitement for film of all kinds – from underseen strangeness to immortal cinema gems - was enough to strike a chord and to secure a longer-lasting place for the newly dubbed Oklahoma Film Exchange in the city’s creative scene.
Though they didn’t reach that aspirational fundraising goal, their guerilla media blitz and sold-out screenings through August were enough to prove that there’s an underground moviegoing market that’s hungry for a micro-sized art house in OKC, and were enough to partner with the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition to keep the doors open, the popcorn popping, and the admission on a pay-what-you-can basis.
According to podcaster, movie critic, and Oklahoma Film Exchange ringleader Dalton Stuart, that outpouring of support from the community was beyond even the group’s wildest dreams.
Dalton Stuart: That support’s the only reason we were able to do what we're doing, just knowing that, like, what we were doing had people excited to come out.
The fact that not only we have a large support in the community, but also, like, diehard support from people means more than I know how to say.
Brett Fieldcamp: But that support came from more than just a communal love of indie cinema.
The theater also represents a part of Oklahoma City history that’s been nearly forgotten over recent years.
Located inside the Paramount Building in Oklahoma City’s West Village, the 50-seat micro-theater began life over 100 years ago as a development lab screening room for studio execs and theater managers when OKC’s Film Row was a distribution hub for all the major Hollywood studios, and it may well be the very last theater of its kind left in America.
But while some supporters of the new Film Exchange are seeking to preserve a piece of a bygone era, the team themselves are more sentimental for the space’s more recent history, first as an underground creative performance space and then as a satellite theater for the non-profit Rodeo Cinema, who assisted with this new co-op transition.
Dalton Stuart: It's been so important to both the film and the larger art scenes here for over a decade now, both as like a screening room, but also as a venue for alternative comedy and drag, events that have a harder time finding a home.
It’s such a special place because it has been so important, not just because of its, you know, long history, but because its recent history. A lot of us have spent some really formative, special times in that space.
Its history, its versatility, there are far more reasons to preserve it than to let it go, you know?
Brett Fieldcamp: The hope that that space can continue its legacy as such a formative venue for young creatives and artistic upstarts is why Stuart and the team want to keep the Film Exchange theater running on a donation and pay-what-you-can model.
Dalton Stuart: That support is why we're keeping our admission pay-what-you-can for as long as we can. For as long as we are able to financially do so, you will pay whatever is feasible for you to come into that theater.
We want this to be a space that's accessible to everybody, and that's really important to us. A lot of us have been through hard times and know what it's like to want to go do stuff out in the community and not be able to.
Brett Fieldcamp: While live performances and community events are all in the cards for the space, it’s still set to remain a sanctuary of cinema, with film screenings and events planned for five nights a week, including influential classicsartsy offerings, and recurring series spotlighting everything from action movie stunt work to screen crushes and heartthrobs and even live comedy takedowns of some hilariously maligned and less-than-stellar b-movies.
But the soul of the space, they hope, will lie in the rapidly evolving local filmmaking scene of Oklahoma.
Dalton Stuart: Obviously, our bread and butter is going to be programming underseen stuff, you know. We're not going to be showing first-run movies ever, but we do want to be there to collaborate with the local film community.
So definitely, we are interested in working with filmmakers to try showcase their stuff and give them a space.
Brett Fieldcamp: For Stuart and the full Oklahoma Film Exchange team, operating this theater is about more than making money on movies or competing with the city’s other art houses or even preserving an historic building. It’s just about providing a space for the truly indie arts scene to grow and flourish, a scene that they’re all still active in themselves.
Dalton Stuart: This is only going to work if the local arts community feels like we're on the ground with them. I mean, all of us have been in the scene in some capacity for a while, but everybody's got skin in the game in the art scene.
And that's the whole reason we decided to do this, because just we all have memories of that space and care about it.
Brett Fieldcamp: The Oklahoma Film Exchange in the Paramount Building on OKC’s Film Row resumes screenings and events beginning Thursday, September 11th with an official re-opening party and a surprise mystery film.
For more, visit oklahomafilmexchange.com.
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