‘We can’t do it alone’: A/perture cinema asks for the community’s help as founder steps down, funds run low

Featured photo: a/perture cinema has existed in downtown Winston-Salem since 2010. (photo courtesy of a/perture cinema)

A/perture Cinema, Winston-Salem’s arthouse movie theater, is in trouble.

On Monday morning, the board of directors for the nonprofit sent out a press release explaining how the founding director, Lawren Desai, had stepped down and that the organization needs at least $100,000 in the next few months to continue operating past this year.

“We’re at this juncture where a/perture doesn’t have the funds to keep going as it is,” said Janice Tsoules, the chair of a/perture’s board.

The independent cinema opened its doors in 2010 right in the heart of Winston-Salem’s downtown on West Fourth Street. At the time, revitalization efforts were taking off downtown, with the creation of a/perture in the mix. With 35mm projectors and a dream, Desai opened what became her life for the next 15 years.

“So much has changed since we opened in 2010, Desai said in an interview on Monday. “Things that you couldn’t expect.”

For starters, streaming hadn’t become culturally ubiquitous in the way that it is today. Then, of course, the pandemic hit.

“The pandemic just stopped us in our tracks,” Desai said. “It has been extra challenging since then.”

According to data collected by the Cinema Foundation, more than 2,000 movie theater screens have in the last four years. Desai also notes that consumer behavior changed and audience attendance has gone down. Last year, with the immense popularity of Barbie and Oppenheimer, the theater saw a spike in business, but that foot traffic hasn’t followed into this year.

“We’ve been trying to raise this money all yearlong,” Desai said. “Yes, we need the $100,000, but we’ve said it all along.”

During the pandemic, the theater closed for 14 months. The organization received a $260,000 grant from the federal government that helped keep organizations like theirs afloat, but that money is long gone, Desai said.

The issue, according to both Desai and Tsoules, is that the organization hasn’t received as much outside grants and funding as they would have hoped.

“We can’t do it alone,” Tsoules said. “We really need the help of the community.”

The need for community support

Since transitioning to a nonprofit in 2017, a/perture has gone after small and large grants to sustain its mission of offering access to independent and foreign films. This past summer, it was one of a handful of theaters across the country that was selected to screen Sundance Film Festival movies. The theater has also regularly screened Oscar-nominated films and shorts every year. This weekend, it will be screening contemporary German films as part of the Kino im Nord Karolina Film Festival.

Despite its unique offerings, Desai and Tsoules told TCB that support from local institutions has been lacking.

“We need to look to our partners in the Winston-Salem community that do not give us the funding that other organizations get,” Tsoules said.

According to Desai, a/perture just received $25,000 from the NC Arts Council for operational support; she’d like to see that kind of help from local foundations, too.

“We’ve really struggled to generate the kind of support that would allow us to expand staff,” Desai said.

That’s part of the reason why she’s resigning.

“I’m pretty much exhausted,” she said.

As a small team made up of her and a handful of staff, Desai said that she ends up working long hours, almost every day of the week.

“I love it so much and I don’t want to stop, but at some point over the last couple of months, it was just too much,” Desai said.

According to Tsoules, a search for a new executive director is underway. Desai will remain at a/perture through the end of the year to help with transitions. But really what the organization needs is funds to keep going.

As mentioned in the press release, a/perture only has enough funding to last through the end of the year; that’s just three months from now.

“We run at a deficit every month,” Tsoules said. “Unfortunately that deficit has not been covered by donations.”

Those that want to support a/perture can do so by attending a movie, spreading the word, donating to the organization or signing up for one of their memberships.

Part of the issue, Tsoules said, is that people don’t realize that a/perture is a nonprofit that needs funding support.

“When you go to an AMC movie theater, you don’t expect to chip in to the theater, but we are a nonprofit,” Tsoules said.

The cinema is one of just about a dozen independent movie theaters located in North Carolina. But as the “City of Arts and Innovation,” Tsoules said that Winston-Salem needs a/perture as part of its cultural fabric.

“A/perture does so much within the community,” she said. “We do special screenings at schools, filmmaker panels, film festivals. It’s so much more than just, ‘Let’s go see what’s playing there.’”

As for Desai, she wants a/perture to stick around, too. Her favorite part of operating a/perture is seeing people’s faces light up as they watch movies in the theaters. It’s the kind of experience you don’t get when you’re watching films at home, she said.

“The experience of being in a cinema and watching people watch a film, it’s just magical,” she said. “It’s not something I want people to take for granted.”

And even if she’s not involved in the organization, she plans on coming back, this time as a patron.

“I obviously want to be able to come and see films here,” she said. “I hope that the result of this is that the community steps up. Not just right now, but in the long run of recognizing the value of having a cinema like a/perture.”

Learn more about a/perture cinema, including how to support the organization on its website.