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Living here for the last decade I am awed by the Twin Cities’ commitment to the legacy arts. But film is the missing jewel in the crown, and I have to wonder why.
As the incoming president of the board for Art House Convergence, the national organization that advocates for independent cinemas, my daily focus is how local film organizations are supporting and supported by their communities. You may read about the demise of film, but just this week Cinema United stated that attendance at movie theaters overall is increasing, especially among Gen Z, who showed a 25% increase in attendance in 2025. The pressures on film organizations are real, but if you attend independent film events in our cities, they create space for people to gather, create storytelling and watch and make films with neighbors. Not because an algorithm told them to do so in the silo of their home. Not because they live on the coasts. Our filmmakers. Our cinemas.
Simply look at the operating budgets for our local independent film organizations. The total annual budgets of MSP Film Society, FilmNorth, Twin Cities Film Festival and others are small compared with other arts sectors. Combined, they might just reach $5 million, a mere fraction of the budgets for our theaters, orchestra, museums, etc.
Cinemas retain, on average, 35% of your ticket price. Festivals can only make revenue for a few days out of the year. For support organizations like FilmNorth, their film training, fiscal sponsorship and advocacy efforts cannot survive without donations. I know these organizations. Their staffs are underpaid and under resourced and they have been since before COVID. Many don’t even have health plans.
Earned revenues have never been enough to allow nonprofit film organizations to raise money to pay their teams, teach our independent professionals and outfit their facilities, like all other arts organizations. It gets worse daily with short screen windows, inevitable mergers like Warner Brothers and, yes, streaming — which is not how film was intended to be seen. Do you open a book when you want to see a Monet or a Degas, or do you drive to the museum? Do you pull up a recording of Mozart’s “Requiem,” or do you buy a ticket if you can to hear it at Orchestra Hall? It is not an accident that the best-equipped screen in Minneapolis is at the Walker, an organization whose mission is not centered in the cinematic arts.
People travel to other cities besides Los Angeles and New York for film: Montclair, Milwaukee, Seattle and Cleveland, to name a few. Most recently the owners of the Music Box, a historic and important cinema in Chicago, purchased Minneapolis’ 100-year-old Heights Theater, a great local venue. Interesting that they see value in this movie house that locally we do not.
