Art-house cinemas try movie subscription passes to bring audiences back

New York

THERE has been much hand-wringing in recent years about the impending death of art-house cinema.

There was the moment several years ago, when small, independently owned theatres had to convert from 35 mm film to digital presentation; or the time in the wintry months of 2018 when the venerable Lincoln Plaza Cinema closed on the Upper West Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan; and most recently, there was the pandemic, which forced movie theatres big and small to shut down for months.

In each case, a scattering of disheartening news - venue closures, bankruptcy filings and the like - have been met with what Eugene Hernandez, who runs the programmes put on by Film at Lincoln Center, called "glimmers of hope". New spaces often emerge, new audiences attend screenings and this time, after having more than a year to assess and reflect, he said. "People are thinking differently about how to preserve this art-house culture we all cherish so much."

One new idea made its American debut last Friday (Oct 29) in New York. The streaming service Mubi, which caters to cinephiles seeking an eclectic mix of films, has begun offering a membership programme that will seek to give art-house fans much of what they could want in one tidy package: a well-stocked streaming service that movie lovers can flip on from home, bundled with a weekly ticket they can use to go see a hand-picked film at their favourite theatre.

Put more bluntly, the programme, known as Mubi Go, mashes up the membership concept behind MoviePass and the at-home streaming convenience of Netflix for those with a taste for international and independent cinema. But the real key, officials emphasised, is actually something else: curation.

"We are about picking good movies for people and trying to get people to watch them," said C Mason Wells, Mubi's director of distribution in the United States. "We want to take our findings and share them with the masses - bring the good things to a wider audience." The plan, Wells said, is to expand from New York during this crucial autumn movie season to Los Angeles in 2022, and then on to select markets across the rest of the country. Mubi Go previously was unveiled in Britain in 2018 and in India in 2019. In Britain, the programme has so far linked up with more than 150 art houses, all of whom have stayed with the programne, Wells said.

As of Friday, Mubi Go members each week can go see a carefully selected, newly released film at a New York location, such as Film Forum, Film at Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, IFC Center, Nitehawk Cinema or the Paris Theater. Mubi buys the tickets for the films from the art houses, Wells said. Subscribers receive a ticket code generated via the Mubi Go app.

For a monthly fee, which is US$10.99 for a limited time, they also have access to Mubi's streaming platform. Mubi selects one new movie - often from far-flung corners of the world - to add to its platform each day. Mubi itself, which used to go by a different name, is now more than a decade old. The streaming service is already available in 190 countries and has more than 10 million members.

The programme, which Mubi has billed as "the first-ever service of its kind", is one attempt to boost small, independently owned film venues that, like their bigger chain-connected brethren, must regain their footing. It is also the latest test of whether tight controls on a subscription-based service for movie theatre tickets can work in the wake of MoviePass' meteoric rise and crash.

"We think it is valuable for people to be in an actual theatrical space," Wells said. "It is the bedrock of the cinema industry. We're trying to honour that." Mubi Go, he added, was not originally intended to start out amid a pandemic. But given the timing, "it has become something that I think can become even more of a lifeline" for art houses "than we envisioned".

Movie theatres around the country have been decimated by the pandemic, which has not discriminated based on size. The forced closures in 2020 brought national chains such as AMC to the brink of bankruptcy while also undermining small, independent cinemas that were fighting to stay in business even before the coronavirus arrived.

"We're in a shakeout of what the new landscape will be," said Jesse Trussell, a senior programmer for film at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, or BAM. "The darkest days were a huge struggle. As with just about any business, you don't anticipate your entire revenue stream drying up all at once."

Matthew Viragh, founder and executive director of Nitehawk Cinema, said he sees Mubi Go as a "complementary system" that will help "fill in the cracks" during slower periods. Nitehawk plans to roll out its own membership programme next year, he said.

More broadly, Rebecca Fons, director of programming at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago, said art houses and independent cinemas have survived for so long specifically because they customise their offerings to their audience members. Staff members know people's names and can anticipate their concession orders, and the spaces become integral parts of the cities and towns they serve. NYTIMES