SALEM — It won’t be long before CinemaSalem, a beloved staple of North Shore culture that shut down this June, begins screening again under new management.
“Having a cinema that’s based in Salem is incredibly important as a gathering space,” said John Andrews of the Creative Collective, who is on the cinema’s management team. “Obviously we can’t gather now, but as we come back gatherings are going to be incredibly important to the recovery.”
Married couple Marshall Strauss and Elaine Gerdine purchased the four-screen theater from Paul Van Ness and they hope to reopen this spring.
“It was not a lifelong dream to own a cinema,” said Strauss, who grew up in Swampscott. “But it is a way to give back.”
The cinema first opened under Van Ness’s ownership in 2006 with a free screening of “The Wizard of Oz” and has remained a local and affordable movie theater option since then.
The venue has also served as an artistic community space, hosting both local and international film festivals.
Van Ness announced in 2019 that he planned to sell the cinema to focus on his film production business, Van Ness Creative, and that the cinema would shut down in 2020 unless someone made the purchase.
Strauss and Gerdine submitted a bid on the cinema, but another buyer was initially chosen.
When the buyer pulled out due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, it appeared to be the death knell for the cinema, which announced on Facebook that it did not plan to reopen.
At that point, however, Strauss was contacted again, and the couple closed on the sale of the cinema last September.
Andrews is hopeful that the space can be used by the artistic community, including as a venue for live performances.
“The creative community has been pretty decimated and we are yet to come back. Having this as an asset to support local filmmakers, local theaters, local artists, will be incredibly important,” said Andrews.
Andrews also intends for the cinema to have a renewed emphasis on inclusivity and diversity.
“How do we make the cinema a more welcoming place for more people? That’s what we’re going to be doing a lot of work on,” said Andrews.
Strauss said that may come in the form of more diverse programming and lower prices. While the cinema is already affordable compared to many larger chains, Strauss said he expects ticket prices to be lowered by a dollar or two.
A questionnaire released in English and Spanish on the Creative Collective website asks residents about their memories of the space and their vision for its future, which will guide the couple’s plans for programming.
Jonathan Kiernan, a North Shore native who has worked as a programmer at a film festival in New Orleans, is returning to the area to develop programming for the cinema.
“I want to take what I know about movies and audiences and communities and translate that to a brick-and-mortar cinema,” said Kiernan.
He intends to work in more specialty programming, the sort of uncommon films that inspired his own passion for film.
“I want to make room for things that feel like more of a discovery that you might not see in your average cinema, and build a real sense of community around things like that,” he said.
That sort of programming will be facilitated by an investment made by Strauss in new projectors. Previous ownership had rented equipment from a studio, which Strauss said limited the types of programming that could be pursued.
“You were in a straitjacket in terms of what you could do,” said Strauss. “We wanted to have more opportunity to be more expansive in your selection of films.”
Before the theater’s anticipated spring opening, the management team plans to donate the space to local nonprofit groups who have helped the community through the pandemic, as a way of saying thanks for the work that they have done, Strauss said.
Guthrie Scrimgeour can be reached at [email protected].
