[ Projector whirring ]
♪♪
-When you start getting close to the screen,
you start realizing just how huge it is.
Now, this is a single, you know,
piece of fabric 97 feet wide.
-Tom Mara, director of
the Seattle International Film Festival,
or SIFF, is right. The screen is huge.
But that big screen is just one thing
that makes the old Cinerama --
now officially called SIFF Cinema Downtown --
a rare and beloved place for Seattle cinephiles.
-As you know, this is a beloved theater,
and not only folks love it,
but it also plays, I think, a symbolic role
in terms of bringing the city back into a vibrancy.
-To truly understand what this theater means,
you have to go back to the beginning,
to when movies were first taking the world and Seattle by storm.
-This is Seattle, Washington. A city in a beautiful region.
-Like any big American city in the early 20th century,
Seattle was home to dozens of theaters,
on the streets of downtown,
but also in many neighborhoods, too.
The Green Parrot,
the Colonial,
the First Ave,
the Coliseum, and so many others.
As vaudeville and other live entertainment faded away,
it didn't take long for movies
to become the dominant form of entertainment
for the middle class.
-That's interesting.
-But by the time TV arrived in Seattle,
many theaters were beginning to shut down,
since you could now watch movies at home.
Of course, all the movies on TV back then
were in black and white,
and the screens on those old TVs,
well, they were downright tiny.
And that's where Cinerama comes in.
-You are about to see the first public exhibition
of an entirely new form of entertainment.
We call it Cinerama.
-Cinerama was a brand name for a new technology
in the early 1950s to produce Hollywood films
to be shown on bigger and better screens
in theaters with bigger and better sound equipment.
-And this was technology that was developed to compete
with the television,
now, all of a sudden, in people's living room.
-Cinerama theaters require three projectors
and three separate projection booths
that work in synchronization to show an aggregate image
on the giant Cinerama screen.
It was gimmicky but impressive, too.
Cinerama first came to Seattle's Paramount Theater in 1956
and was a hit at the World's Fair
in the Boeing Spacearium.
-The world's largest movie screen.
-On the eve of the fair,
Cinerama announced they would build a showplace
at Fourth Avenue and Lenora Street.
It was the first new movie theater in downtown
Seattle in 30 years.
That three-projector format was cumbersome and died away,
but the theater ran regular movies instead.
Over the years, the place got a little rundown
until late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen bought it.
Allen did a major renovation and the Cinerama survived.
-So now we're at the back of the theater,
coming into the projector room,
and there's a lot going on in here. Come on in.
-And more than 60 years after it first debuted,
the Cinerama is still here, thanks to Tom Mara and SIFF.
-A number of different systems.
We've got the ability to do 70 millimeter.
We've got digital projection.
We have the Cinerama projector there.
We have this main booth.
Then, if you look onto the right-hand side wall,
you'll see another projector booth,
same on the left-hand side.
And those three projectors combine the images
onto this very wide curved screen.
-The technology may be a little complicated,
but the value in saving the Cinerama is easy to understand.
When Paul Allen died in 2018,
the Cinerama's future was in doubt.
Then, in 2020, it shut down and many people
thought the closure was permanent.
So when he took the job to lead SIFF in 2022,
Tom Mara's number one priority was clear.
-10 minutes of day one of my job at SIFF,
it was clear that we had a quest in front of us
to figure out how we ensure the future of the cinema.
-With support from the City of Seattle and King County,
SIFF reached a deal with Paul Allen's estate.
-And, so, we were really inspired
by how the community came together.
-One, two, three.
-And tonight you are here for the VIP preview
of SIFF Cinema Downtown,
the reopening of Seattle's historic Cinerama Theatre.
-Welcome to SIFF Cinema Downtown.
Thank you so much for your championship.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-While movie theaters had once been
strictly a for-profit business,
SIFF's role as a cultural nonprofit
means the future of the old Cinerama
is not only about the bottom line.
-We're an arts organization.
People care about art, people care about film,
and people want to come together
and be captured by the big screen.
-The more we can do to encourage people
to be here in person,
to go to cinemas, to really help the arts thrive, the better,
I think, our culture and our communities will all be.
♪♪
-The big screen, comfortable seats,
an incredible sound system,
and -- okay, okay -- the famous chocolate popcorn, too,
all add up to a unique cinematic experience.
But for Tom Mara, it's about the people, too.
-I just know, for one,
I'll always have fun hanging out in the lobby
and just watching people come in
and getting ready for the lights to go down,
which I think is one of the finest moments in life.
When the lights start going down,
you get ready for your adventure.
-And the transformation of Cinerama
to SIFF Cinema Downtown
is one adventure that movie lovers in Seattle
will be thrilled to enjoy for decades to come.
♪♪
Watch CItyStream Tuesday nights at seven on the Seattle
Channel, or find us anytime on seattlechannel.org.
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