Kamloops Film Society hopes to expand movie offerings, build on community partnerships

Film society grows offerings

The Kamloops Film Society is hoping to expand its community partnerships and build out its repertoire of films as it heads into the new year.

Over the past year, executive director Colette Abbott has taken the reigns of the film society and programming manager Sam Theriault has stepped into his role as well.

They say it’s been a learning process in their new positions and some of that work has included connecting with and building on community partnerships and expanding movie offerings for Kamloops audiences.

“We've moved away from primarily new releases. We play a lot of classic movies here, we also play lots of different foreign language films,” Theriault said.

Abbott said the KFS has also been focused on bringing Canadian cinema and independent films to the Paramount’s screen.

Hearing from the community

Part of the plan has been to engage with the community on which films should be shown.

“One thing that we can do, that maybe a lot of the other larger cinemas can't do, is really respond to the community and what they want to see,” Abbott said.

Theriault cited a recent example in which a community member requested the film society screen Hello, Love, Again, a romantic drama and major hit in the Philippines. Over 350 attended the screening.

“I know there’s more audiences like that out there, I want to serve all of them,” Theriault said.

Abbott said her goal is to make sure at least half of the films screened at the Paramount Theatre are in collaboration with community partners, and are always looking for new ideas.

The Paramount has begun screening a new anime series in collaboration with the TRU student union anime club and has ramped up horror offerings at the theatre through a partnership with Drunk in a Graveyard.

She said audiences sizes for live showings of the New York Metropolitan Opera have grown as well, which began at around 60 and have surpassed over 100 attendees at the latest screening.

“I think there's a real appetite,” Abbott said.

“People can watch a movie at home by themselves, but when you come to the Paramount, you're really coming to get a little bit more out of that, be a part of a community.”

Coming to a theatre near you

Volunteers with the society have also been working to create an online library of its rentable DVD collection.

Abbott said the 26,000 DVDs will be catalogued online for KFS members to rent, freeing up space in the Paramount’s lobby. She said the online library would likely launch in a matter of months.

The Paramount Theatre will also be turning 70-years-old this year, and the film society is eyeing possible upgrades for the building.

“I think we can look forward to a little bit of a capital fundraising compaign in the coming years, so we can finally upgrade our theatre, maybe look at some sound quality upgrades and just a few things like that,” Abbott said.

KFS will be holding its second annual Black Film Festival in the first week of February. Tickets are expected to be available for purchase soon.

Theriault teased “something adjacent” to the recently released Robert Eggers remake of Nosferatu would be screened at the 29th annual Kamloops Film Festival, which will run from March 6 to March 15.

Film festivals later in the year will include the Indigenous Film Festival, Queer Film Festival and French Film Festival.