The Camelot Theatres at the Palm Springs Cultural Center will be taking a break this Summer, beginning Friday, June 29th. The Center itself will be open for a number of special events, but regular film screenings will be suspended. The theatres will re-open on Friday, August 31st.
“We have several projects we want to work on during the Summer break,” said Michael C. Green, Executive Director of the Palm Springs Cultural Center. “We will be installing the hardware for our new pop up art gallery program throughout the building, as well as working on several maintenance items like painting, cleaning carpets, cleaning seats, etc. – things that are difficult to accomplish while we are open.”
Also in the works for the Palm Springs Cultural Center is a change to the way it programs its theatres. “As we carry our vision for the Cultural Center forward, we want to look at our theatre spaces as places the community can gather to enjoy a wide variety of programs – live speakers, theatrical performances, special events, and, of course, independent film screenings.” said Rick Moore, Chairman of the Board for the Palm Springs Cultural Center.
“This new approach will provide us with far more flexibility,” Green added. “There has always been a certain amount of stress associated with conforming to the standard theatrical model. Studios don’t like to have their films bumped by special events or film festivals and we do a lot of that. Last year, we started the Palm Springs Cultural Center Community Theatre in an effort to gauge community interest in a more community-centric screening schedule. The feedback we got was that the community loved it – at times even more than the studio releases. The film, Sinatra in Palm Springs, is a great example of that. A studio would never have allowed us to screen that film, much less keep it as long as we did.”
“When we choose films in the future, it will be because they are the kinds of films our community wants to see,” Rick Moore continued. “Films that are of interest to local film buffs – some that may have been award winners at Cannes, BFI, the Berlinale, Sundance or Tribeca, but have not been able to find wide scale distribution in the United States. Others that have a local angle – either about someone who lived and worked here, or made by a local filmmaker. We see a vibrant future for the Palm Springs Cultural Center and our Camelot theatres.”
The Palm Springs Cultural Center maintains a complete schedule of special events on its website, palmspringsculturalcenter.org. Look for special events throughout the Summer and a whole new schedule in the Fall.