Highland Park’s Theater looks like just any run of the mill local movie theater. To Kirsten Stewart however, it is a place of further movie loving growth. After learning the theater was on the to be shut down due to finical struggle, Stewart swept in and purchased the theater, making sure that it can have it’s second chance.
Stewart explains that the main plan is to structurally change the venue, to make it more than a nostalgia piece
This project is about creating a new school and restructuring our processes, finding a better way forward.
She further explains that the theater will function as a screening room and a place where audiences can learn how films are made, turning the theater into a setting for education and entertainment.
Her central vision for the whole project is community. Stewart wants the theater to feel open for all, while keeping it’s Highland Park roots. She also pushed back against the idea that cinemas can exist for every kind of person, not just elite audiences.
We want to make it a family affair, something for the community. It’s not just for pretentious Hollywood cinephiles
With very blunt language, her mission is clear: to reclaim cinema culture from commercial formality. Stewart wants the theater as a solution to corporate nonsense. She wants a space that values a film lovers intrigue and wants to build a memorable experience. By taking film out of the current narrow cycle of buying and selling, she hopes to bring back its social influence.
Independent theaters across the country disappear almost every day now. Kirsten Stewart believes the need for spaces like this remains strong, and she hopes that the space she is now creating can offer that need.
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