Santa Fe finds way to save cinema

City will partner with arts center to run theater at closed college campus

SANTA FE — The Center for Contemporary Arts will keep The Screen alive through a newlyformed partnership with the city.

The Screen, a 20-year art house cinema operated by the former Santa Fe University of Art & Design, closed its doors April 30 a few weeks before the college did. Programming will resume July 13 as an extension of CCA’s Cinematheque and will act as a central location for its public programming and a third theater to show some of its films, Mayor Alan Webber and CCA leaders announced Thursday.

“We’ve been able to take something that people love and were worried about losing and see it revitalized, brought back to life, in a creative partnership,” said Webber, who contacted CCA executive director Stuart Ashman following the closing two months ago.

Before the Santa Fe University of Art & Design, the 160-seat facility was run by the College of Santa Fe. CCA has a renewable one-year service value lease with the city, meaning it can provide public services in lieu of rent. Similar agreements are in place for the Food Depot and the Boys and Girls Club.

An appraisal to determine the facility’s rent value will be done in the next 60 days, and CCA will have to match that value in programming or pay the difference, according to Santa Fe’s asset development director Matt O’Reilly.

CCA’s Cinematheque Director Jason Silverman said the nonprofit theater is planning do as much public programming at this facility as possible, including establishing new community partners, moving over programs to the larger space and expanding others like its Youth Partners Program.

CCA annually serves 1,000 students from schools like Capital and Monte del Sol Charter. Silverman said CCA provides movies and speakers.

He touted The Screen’s proximity to Santa Fe High and the new Milagro Middle School, meaning CCA could eliminate its typical expense of busing students to and from the Cinematheque.

“We’re going to be able to do more programming for less money,” he said. “They’ll be able to walk across the street or walk through the gate, and we hope this theater will be filled during the school year with middle school and high school kids.”

The Screen will also show some films coming through CCA depending on popularity or whether they “connect” well to the midtown or Southside audience, an area of town that Silverman says is not as well served by Santa Fe’s cultural institutions.

Its opening weekend, they will show two new documentaries — “Three Identical Strangers” and “Strangers on the Earth” — also showing at CCA.