EspressoKino, The Roasterie a
couple of years ago, at a going-away party for a friend who worked at Kensington institution The Roasterie, Mark Reynolds and Sean Donohue lamented to shop owner Lech Wojakowski that he generally closed his doors too early in the day. “He said, ‘Well, give me a reason to stay open late,’” Reynolds recalls. The friends thought about it and, in a move that ultimately remedied their other gripe that this city lacks a repertory theatre, suggested a regular movie night at the coffee shop. To his great credit, Wojakowski said yes.
Held every Thursday, EspressoKino is a free event that transforms The Roasterie from friendly neighbourhood coffee shop to very friendly neighbourhood movie theatre (105 screenings and counting). While not every week sees a full house, the venue—especially when Hitchcock or Kurosawa is in the house—is often at full capacity, with 25 cinephiles watching classic, experimental, locally produced or cult films the likes of which rarely hit the big screen in this town.
For Donohue, who spends much of his time at Maria Tomás furniture (his wife owns the joint), EspressoKino is a communal expression of his true passion. He has a degree in film studies, and possesses, as Reynolds puts it, “an extremely wide breadth of film knowledge.” Reynolds, on the other hand, who works as a journeyman electrician, is just an ordinary movie geek—if there’s anything ordinary about pining for mid-century, avant-garde Japanese, French and Mexican cinema.
One gets the sense that scheduling upcoming films is as much fun for these two as watching them. “We sit down and we fight a little bit,” says Donohue, “and then we figure out if we can realistically get a hold of the movie we want to screen.” This month’s Jim Jarmusch theme is a little further along in the 20th century than the duo’s usual offerings; generally speaking, says Donohue, their tastes gravitate to an era “before fake teeth.” Last month’s lineup included Billy Wilder’s 1960 American classic
The Apartment and Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story. With spectators duly warned that there will be “no popcorn, no beer, no prizes, no box office, no tickets, no Ted Talks,” the evenings proceed in a refreshingly low-key manner: it’s just coffee and a movie (although, last week, the hosts served ice cream in honour of the famous prison chant in Jarmusch’s Down by Law).
As EspressoKino’s popularity grows, there’s a risk that its 25 seats will be too few even for the most obscure screenings. Donohue is unruffled about the prospect of out-growing The Roasterie. “Of course I’d like to build a back-alley Parisian-style repertory cinema,” he says with a laugh. Barring that, he and Reynolds are happy with the current venue—as is Wojakowski, who is reportedly pleased that Thursday-night coffee sales are way up.