ISTIC ILLIC SUPPORTS IN-PERSON CINEMA

There’s all these other kinds of ways of being sentient, ways of being aware, ways of being conscious. One interesting example that there are some studies of is to think about when you’re completely absorbed in a really interesting movie. You’re kind of gone. Your self is gone. You’re not deciding what to pay attention to in the movie. The movie is just completely captivating. (The brain’s) frontal areas are very involved and very engaged. When you look at the brain of someone really absorbed in a great movie, neither the default mode or the goal-directed pathway, what they sometimes call task dependent activity, are really active. And instead, other parts of the brain are more active. And that brain, the brain of the person who’s absorbed in the movie, looks more like the child’s brain.

— Alison Gopnik, Professor of Psychology and Philosophy at UC-Berkeley

Few industries suffered during COVID as much as the arts. Symphonies, plays, musicals, concerts, dance — all had to find ways to make ends meet. Mostly, they did. They have re-opened, and their excited fans have returned to see them.

But movie theaters are different. COVID presented not only a two-year struggle for survival, it also created, or at least accelerated, another existential threat. Streaming, the most direct and formidable competition movie theaters face, became habit for almost everyone during the pandemic lockdowns.

No one would claim that watching a play on TV is the same as seeing live actors. ISTIC ILLIC believes the same is true of the movie theater experience. Watching a movie in a theater touches people in ways that are not replicated at home, and certainly not when streaming on a laptop or a phone.

Movie theaters are Enveloping

From the 1896 screening of the Lumiere brothers’ L’Arrivée d’un train engare de La Ciotat, when panicked moviegoers fled what they believed to be a real locomotive coming toward them, the Big Screen has always had the ability to make the audience feel, on some level, that they have been transported to another place.

Movie theaters are Uninterrupted

We all recognize what the digital age has done to attention spans. Most of us recognize how much we have tacitly consented to it. This makes a tiny action we take before a film in a theater peculiarly liberating — we turn off our phones. And it’s not just our phones: none of the temptations of home are available. Are you hungry? Do you need to go to the bathroom? The movie isn’t going to stop, so either wait or run. Sometimes when a film hits a lull — even a very short one — I feel a tug. My hand reaches toward my pocket to check my phone. But I realize that my phone is turned off, and the restlessness passes quickly. Meditation teaches people to observe their thoughts, and then to let them pass by refusing them new energy. Watching a movie in the theater is a meditation. Indeed, studies have shown that when we are absorbed in a movie, different parts of our brain are activated than in typical “task dependent” life. We are not making decisions. Our whole mind is released into the artists’ hands.

Movie theaters are Communal

Phones put us in curated worlds, politics are making us tribal, COVID kept us apart from each other. What could be more needed right now than spending two hours sharing an experience with a group of strangers? To be in a place where we signal to each other our own emotional state: contagious laughter, a collective gasp, even, occasionally, tears. Being with others makes us our experience feel more real, our emotions felt more deeply.

Movie theaters are temples for laughs, thrills, learning, feeling, and empathy. ISTIC ILLIC is worried that we will lose them. More specifically, we are worried about losing movie theaters that show films for adults, films that challenge us and expand our world.

“Istic” is Latin for “there, nearby” while “illic” is Latin for “there, far away.” Our name references our desire to examine and reflect a broad and varied array of the human experience. In addition to supporting artists’ visions, we are now committing to supporting the movie theatres that screen movies like the ones we support. Independent and not-for-profit theatres dominate the distribution of Cinema as an art form.

Among our donations:

ISTIC ILLIC has been the major sponsor ofthe Rockaway Film Festival in Rockaway Beach, NYC since 2017. If you love the art of film and chill vibes, you will be hard pressed to find a better time.

ISTIC ILLIC sponsors an annual director retrospective at the TIFF Lightbox in Toronto. To date, we have had series on Abbas Kiarostami, Josh and Benny Safdie, and Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

ISTIC ILLIC sponsors The Big Picture Fund (link above), which allows any movie fan to host theatrical events in their hometown. We have sponsored events featuring films by and live conversations with Andrew Bujalski, Caveh Zahedi, Betsey Brown, and others.

We hope to encourage filmgoers to contribute to and/or become members of their local non-profit theatre.

A list of American independent and non-profit theatres
A list of Canadian independent and non-profit theatres

January, 2022