Hempstead Hall to host drive-in movies

Showings begin with ‘Back to the Future’ screening Saturday

HOPE, Ark. — A popular, pandemic-inspired social media meme making the rounds lately touts the potential return of drive-in movies.

Hempstead Hall will make it happen through the month of May, starting at 8:30 p.m. Saturday with an outdoor showing of “Back to the Future.”

At a time when social distancing measures keep movie lovers isolated and out of the cinemas, this is one way to come together and watch a movie together.

Drive-in moviegoers can guide their cars to the big parking lot behind the University of Arkansas Hope-Texarkana

Distance Learning Building. Signs will direct people where to go. Moviegoers are asked to stay in their vehicle during the entire movie.

“Moana” will be the movie for Saturday, May 16, same time and place, with additional titles for May to be announced later. Hempstead Hall invites people to offer suggestions of movies they’d like to see.

There’s no fee, but Hempstead Hall does suggest people donate to the Hope for All: COVID19 Relief Fund.

A Facebook post about the event said “Hempstead Hall is bringing the movies to you … at a social distance!”

According to reports, various venues across the country — and overseas — are hosting drive-in movie events, such as an Oregon winery that reworked its parking lot to host drive-in movies or the Florida cinema that will screen movies on its building.

And according to the Associated Press, a drive-in movie theater even opened in Iran for the first time since that country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Existing drive-in movie theaters are opening for the season, hearkening back to a bygone era, but they’ve also been impacted by the coronavirus, explains