Toronto movie fans are calling on elected leaders to protect the Revue Cinema after its board announced yesterday that it was unable to renew the theatre’s lease past the end of this month. If no agreement is reached, the venue may be forced to shutter its doors on July 1.
On Thursday, a former Revue employee launched a petition urging the city’s elected representatives to “step up in support of the Revue to ensure this not-for-profit theatre never closes.” As of Friday afternoon, the petition had more than 11,000 signatures.
“Toronto’s oldest running cinema has been defining the cinematic experience in our city for many years, and cannot be allowed to disappear due to the demands of an unreasonable, profit-driven landlord,” the petition reads.
The prospect of the Revue closing its doors sent an immediate ripple of panic through the city’s embattled arts community.
“It would be a devastating blow to the film community in Toronto,” said Corey Atad, a freelance journalist and movie critic. “The theatre has become the beating heart of the cinema scene in the city at a time when multiplexes and other theatres are struggling to survive. To close such a well-run, beloved institution is almost unthinkable.”
The 245-seat Revue Cinema first opened in 1912. The theatre closed in 2006 following the fall of the Festival Cinemas chain and the death of building owner Peter McQuillan. A year later, Toronto resident Daniel Mullin was heralded as a saviour after he spent $1 million to purchase the building. Mullin then leased the building to the Revue Film Society, who transformed the theatre into a not-for-profit, community-driven cinema.
On Wednesday, amid an effort to extend the Revue’s lease, Mullin, 96, announced his plans to take over operations in order to turn the non-profit theatre into a private movie house.
The Revue’s board chair Grant Oyston said the board is seeking a court injunction to extend the lease. Oyston told the Star that the board gave Mullin a deadline of 9 a.m. on Friday but the landlord did not respond. “We are proceeding with seeking a court injunction today to prevent the eviction and exercise our full legal rights,” said Oyston.
Will Sloan, a film critic and journalist, said the news is particularly surprising, given that the Revue has been thriving, while many movie theatres have struggled to recover post-pandemic and counter the threat of streaming.
“The Revue team has adapted,” he told the Star. “Their programming is in touch with the zeitgeist, and the programmers have built a level of trust with their audiences that they can also be challenging and adventurous. The Revue’s screenings are consistently successful and often sold-out.”
The Revue offers monthly series like the horror-centric Nightmare Alley; the neo-noir focused Neon Dreams; and the fun and rowdy Drunken Cinema. Then there’s Dumpster Raccoon, a series featuring “trashy” cult films and live performances before each movie.
Culture writer and movie critic Nathalie Atkinson is the mind behind the costume design series, Designing the Movies, which launched at the Revue in 2016. She’s since presented more than 80 movies and events. For her, the Revue is all about community.
“The Revue is a scrappy underdog — nimble, lean, and doing more with a lot less than many other cultural institutions,” she told the Star. “I especially love chatting with the audience after the movie, when the crowd spills out onto the sidewalk in front of the theatre and people, who don’t otherwise know one another, compare fresh notes.”
Sloan, who has been a regular at the Revue since he saw a martial arts film there in 2006, agrees that the venue is more than just a place to watch movies. He recalls a recent sold-out screening of “The Wizard of Oz” on 35mm.
“It felt like the whole neighbourhood was united at this screening: young, old, hipsters, ‘Film Twitter’ personalities, families. In a time when streaming had made cinema an increasingly housebound, isolated experience, this screening reminded of its communal power.”
Saffron Maeve, a series programmer at the Paradise Theatre, has been visiting the Revue since she was a child. “The Revue is a staple in the Toronto film community, in part because it’s one of very few theatres to screen 35 mm and 16 mm prints,” she said. “The loss of the Revue would be devastating not only culturally and socially, but at the level of physical film. It’s hard to argue the merits of preserving film if there are no opportunities to show it.”
Sloan said the landlord’s plan to fire the Revue’s board and turn the theatre into a private business is “sadly typical” of Toronto, “a city built around the whims of our landlord class.”
“The landlord is unbelievably arrogant if he thinks he can do a better job.”
Maeve echoed Sloan’s point, emphasizing the “vital” efforts of the board. “The arts sector is not some formulaic project — you cannot replicate its cultivated community and success if you’re driven by greed. Patrons are sure to observe a change in those values.”
City Councillor Gord Perks told the Star on Thursday that he is “in complete support of the current board and management.”
On Friday, Bhutila Karpoche, the MPP for Parkdale-High Park, told the Star that she was moved by her community’s “immediate and overwhelming support” for the Revue. She said she is currently in contact with the Revue’s board, the local BIA, Councillor Perks and her colleagues in the provincial government.
“All of us in the community want to see this theatre continue to operate the way it has been, we want it to be community run and not-for-profit, and to provide the kind of programming they have been,” she said.
Atad, the film critic, said his most cherished memory from the Revue was taking his mom to see the Bette Midler movie “Beaches”: “We cried together, of course, and so did everyone else in the audience.”
“These institutions are important because they are where we can experience the beauty of culture in a space of community,” he said. “I’ve made friends at the Revue. I’ve learned lessons about life at the Revue. Why take that away without good reason?”
