The historic (and wonderful) Avalon Theatre DC
The oldest operating movie theater in Washington, D.C. is a non-profit -- and a go-to place for independent and international films.
I’m thrilled that our festival premiere for The Other You next week will be in my hometown of Washington, D.C -- and I’m especially excited that it will be at The Avalon Theatre. Whenever I walk into the Avalon -- the oldest continuously operating theater in D.C. -- it feels like an event. I know I’m going to see something special, often something I’m unlikely to see anywhere else.
Once upon a time, many neighborhoods in D.C. (and in other cities) had their own movie theaters. (My neighborhood cinema, the MacArthur, closed in the late 1990s, and while the historic facade is preserved, it’s now a CVS.) But the Avalon lives on -- one of the last remaining neighborhood theaters in the city.
The Avalon opened in 1923 as the Chevy Chase Theatre, screening silent films accompanied by a live pipe organ. Over the next century, it experienced many changes: becoming wired for sound in 1929, going art deco (and getting air conditioning) in the 1930s. One particularly lovely addition is the beautiful mural on the main theater’s interior dome, which was painted in 1985. In 2001, when the Lowe’s theater chain declared bankruptcy, the local community came together to save the historic theater. It is now a non-profit, and in the 21st century has continued to adapt to the times: converting to digital projection, increasing accessibility with an elevator, and adding solar panels to the roof.
I’ve seen all kinds of films at the Avalon, from Boots Riley’s wonderfully weird Sorry to Bother You to Dina Amer’s sobering You Resemble Me. I loved the WIFV-sponsored screening of Her Aim is True, a documentary about the Jini Dellaccio, a rock photographer of bands like The Who, Rolling Stones, and Mamas & Papas, which included a Q&A with director Karen Whitehead. At the tail end of the pandemic, the Avalon was one of the first local theaters to re-open, and I jumped at the chance to see In the Heights. Even though patrons were fully masked and seated in socially-distanced pods, the joy of seeing a movie together overflowed that evening -- culminating with a group of teenagers breaking into spontaneous dancing during the credits.
We can’t wait to share The Other You with you on February 13, and we couldn’t be happier about sharing it with you at a venue like The Avalon Theatre. We hope this is the first of many screenings of our film at historic cinemas -- if you have a favorite one where you live, please let us know, and we’ll try to book it!
Sources:
https://www.theavalon.org/standing-the-test-of-time/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2023/04/11/avalon-theatre-centennial-films