Guerrilla Cinema

The East Van Vodville Cinema is Now Showing in a Venables Alleyway

Late last year, a tiny theatre appeared in the alley at East Vancouver 1601 Venables. This tiny cinema is 1:55 scale model of the historic Pantages Theatre, a former vaudeville and film theatre. Opened in 1907, it was demolished in 2011.

If you want to see what’s playing, check out their blog here.

Can you tell us about the project, what inspired you to build a 1:55 scale model of the historic Pantages Theatre?

The East Van Vodville Cinema is a free, 24/7 sidewalk-accessible mini movie theatre. There have been other peephole cinemas, like the "Peephole Cinema" in San Francisco, and the early-film nickelodeons, but we wanted ours to be a little window into an alternate dimension, one where the Pantages escaped demolition through neglect, but at the cost of 99.9994% of its volume. And is populated by increasing numbers of muppets.

Why was it important to put your project in public like this? Is guerrilla cinema the wave of the future?

So many reasons. It warms my little shit disturber heart to see the sheer range of people that are drawn to this thing. The Vodville doesn't care who you are; if you show up to its bit of sidewalk, it has a movie for you. It's a way of showing care between neighbours. It introduces people to the Vancouver Hack Space, which is a grassroots community makerspace, at a time when mutual aid is more important than ever. It brings people delight, sometimes when they really need it. It let us get a clip from Canadian Bacon onto the news on January 20. It's also an opportunity to make copyright exemption rights real to people, and I'm gonna nerd out for a sec:

There is a section of Canada's copyright act called the "Fair Dealing" exemption, which allows non-commercial use of "non-substantial" portions of copyrighted material for purposes of education (and more). Our programming is grassroots film history education for the kids and lifelong learners in the neighbourhood. We do little writeups for each movie, and keep it under 10% of the original work.

You have to exercise your rights, otherwise you lose them. They get negotiated away in trade deals. In 2022, CUSMA resulted in a 20 year pause in American works entering the public domain in Canada. This legal stuff is boring, and nobody cares, and slowly your rights get chipped away. So the Vodville is a small way to stand up for freedom of expression and access to shared culture, by making it tangible.

We would love to see more guerrilla cinema in the world. We have a link to our build logs on our website, littlefreecinema.org, and if anyone who wants to build one, please get in touch. We'd love to have a map of these things on our website one day.

What kind of programming is the theatre running? What do you plan to run in the future?

We show a real mix... theme weeks with out-of-context scenes from old movies, work by local artists, guest curator community groups and film festivals... We're steadily shifting towards locally created films. There are a few projects coming up that I'm really excited about... If there are any local musicians or puppeteers reading this, if you'd like to show a video, please get in touch!

There’s some interesting viewers inside, who’s your favourite little free cinema viewer?

I think my favourite viewer is the tiny paint chip in the frame over by Totoro. It's a piece of the original Pantages. Second favourite is a tie between Statler and Waldorf.

If you had unlimited time or resources what would your next project be?

Somebody gave us a great big beam from the original Pantages, so that's going to get worked in somehow, probably as a portable version that can go to events. We'd love to build a more accessible one at the Children's Hospital. Unlimited resources though...? I think every neighbourhood could use some version of a Vodville. Our most popular shows are always the ones by local artists. People want to see what their neighbours are making, and thinking, without algorithms and marketing and social media weirdness getting in the way.