Danny Murtaugh, Cleveland International Film Festival: Opening night at Playhouse Square 2019

Cleveland, Ohio - The curtain is coming down on the Cleveland International Film Festival at Tower City Cinemas.

After 30 years in the downtown theater complex, the festival is moving to a new, permanent home for its 2021 fest and beyond. But not just any home. CIFF will be calling the city’s premier entertainment district home: Playhouse Square.

It was a move born of necessity, but one that should reap huge benefits for the festival, Playhouse Square — and downtown.

“Every year, we have had this uncertainty hanging over us with the future of Tower City,” says executive director Marcie Goodman. “We formed a committee way back in 2007 to start to look for options if we had to leave the theaters. This committee was busy for 12 years, and we visited every possible location. We always wanted to stay downtown if possible, but there really didn’t seem to be any option for that.

“Then last year we started hearing all of these stories about CityBlock and how that was going to impact the mall.”

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Cleveland International Film Festival: Marcie Goodman

Construction on CityBlock, a $110 million renovation of Tower City Center into a shared entertainment/entrepreneurship/lifestyle space, is slated to begin this year at the mall; Bedrock director of communications Gabrielle Poshadlo said there is “no update at this time” on a possible start date.

“We were told there would be a lot of construction in the public spaces,” says Goodman. “We use those. … And we started thinking we would have to spread out like other festivals.”

Then she had a fateful meeting with a friend, one who happens to be Playhouse Square’s president and CEO.

“Last January, Gina Vernaci and I were having lunch, and the talk turned to the festival and Tower City and our struggles,” says Goodman. “And she said, ‘What about Playhouse Square?’ ”

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Timothy Smith, Cleveland International Film Festival: Opening night 2019

“And I said, ‘That has always been unimaginable to us.’ She said, ‘I’ll see what I can do … then things just started rolling. In less than a year, our board voted to move. What had been unimaginable a year ago will become a reality in 2021.”

Vernaci says Playhouse Square is the perfect fit for the festival. Both see it as a permanent new home.

“What they have created at the festival is so dynamic and exciting, and to think it can all still be under one roof is big; there are not many places that can occur. And the notion that it is going to remain in downtown Cleveland is also big,” she says.

“We wanted to do what we could to keep the festival going and to build on it for the health of the festival, and Cleveland and Playhouse Square. To put those 100,000-plus attendees in the middle of Playhouse Square will make the place jump in in a whole new way.”

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Keith Berr: Gina Vernaci

She sees many rewards for Playhouse Square in the relationship.

“I think that as we as a center now think about what the future of this district is, it redefines Playhouse Square from a theater district to an entertainment and media center. This is going to influence the lens we see ourselves through to set the stage for what is to come.

“It’s very, very impactful. Every opportunity that introduces someone to Playhouse Square is an opportunity for people to be engaged with what we have going here at this local treasure.”

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Thomas Ondrey, The Plain Dealer: 2017 festival at Tower City Cinemas

The 44th annual festival will take place this year as planned at Tower City March 25-April 5. Opening night will be at Playhouse Square, where it has been the last two years.

This festival will be a celebration, says Goodman.

“We feel really lucky and honored and so grateful for these 30 years at Tower City. We’ve been under one roof for the whole festival, first the Cedar Lee [Theatre in Cleveland Heights] and then Tower City. We have had an amazing 30 years there, and certainly the festival has grown an awful lot. This is something to be celebrated.”

Preparations will begin immediately afterward for the move.

The 45th Cleveland International Film Festival will take place around the same time as usual, next spring at Playhouse Square. Festival organizers will have the option to program movies in all of the theaters at Playhouse Square.

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Timothy Smith, Cleveland International Film Festival

“From intimate to the grand, we plan to use at least six or seven,” says Goodman.

Theater productions and other stage events, including touring Broadway shows, will continue to be performed at the same time, says Vernaci.

“It is a concern, and we have been working very closely with our resident companies to work in cooperation with the festival,” says Vernaci.

“I think more is more. It’s all about the excitement of coming to Playhouse Square for all kinds of audiences for all kinds of purposes. … The number of theaters the festival will use will vary from year to year, but it will be the majority of the theaters.”

Despite having fewer theaters — Tower City Cinemas has 10 — Goodman doesn’t foresee much impact on festival programming. CIFF is known for one of the most robust schedules in the country, hosting 600 screenings in 2019. For the past five years, CIFF’s attendance has topped 100,000.

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Cleveland International Film Festival

“For one thing, we’ll still be showing more films than anyone can ever possibly see, even if we will not be in 10 spaces. Even at Tower City, we often were just showing in seven or eight theaters. I don’t think the impact will be huge, and the potential for capacity is great.

“It will impact the number of films and scheduling of [artistic director Bill Guentzler and director of programming Mallory Martin], but it’s still going to be more than anyone can ever see. …The first year will be all about learning.”

Though the Playhouse Square theaters were built to show movies when they opened 100 years ago, they are no longer equipped to do so. Goodman says the festival may lease equipment each year. However, CIFF also has the option to take the screens, sound systems and projectors from Tower City Cinemas along with them. They were purchased by the festival with a George Gund Foundation loan in 2013.

“The festival has the right to remove the equipment,” says Jon Forman, president of Cleveland Cinemas, which manages Tower City Cinemas. (He was also the founder of the Cleveland International Film Festival in 1977.) “It’s up to them.”

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Cleveland International Film Festival

Goodman says no decision has been made on the equipment.

“We’d rather be reactive than proactive,” she says. “If [theater owners] Bedrock want to purchase it from us, I’d happily talk to them about it. But we’re not going to reach or make any decisions at this point unless they want to talk. Otherwise, it’s not something we will think about until the summer.”

If they choose to remove the equipment, the future of the theaters is in doubt.

“Our lease expires in August of this year, that’s all I know,” says Forman. “Now that this concept of (CityBlock) is about, whether or not a theater will be a part of it is something we have to discuss with Bedrock.”

“No decisions have been made yet pertaining to the projection equipment or whether there will be a cinema in the new development,” says Bedrock’s Poshadlo.

Despite the potential impact to Tower City Cinemas, Forman says he’s thrilled to see the festival continue to grow.

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Danny Murtaugh, Cleveland International Film Festival

"As the founder of the festival, I'm happy to see them make this exiting move. I think it will work out very well for them, and I congratulate them on taking this big leap. … We've been very pleased to host them for 30 years."

Forman has been in a similar situation before. Thirty years ago, the CIFF board voted to move the festival from its first home at the Cedar Lee Theatre to Tower City Cinemas, which was then managed by Hoyt Cinemas.

"[Former executive director] David Wittowsky and I objected; we thought the time wasn't right. But the board voted to do it, and we busted our butts to make it work. Now I realizehad we not done that, the festival would not be as successful as it has become. … We are sorry to lose the festival, but it's been an honor. "In my regime, we even dabbled with the idea of Playhouse Square," says Forman, who is no longer on the CIFF board. "What better home than Playhouse Square?"

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Timothy Smith, Cleveland International Film Festival

Especially in 2021, the centennial year of the largest performing arts complex outside New York City.

“The idea of moving the festival here in the 2021 season is that we will be having the theaters come back as their original intention: They were built 100 years ago for film and vaudeville,” says Vernaci.

“This is the very essence of why Playhouse Square was built in the first place. It’s an absolute dream to have it come back to what it was meant to be.”

Goodman agrees.

“This is going full circle for Playhouse Square. The theaters were created for vaudeville and cinema, and now we are bringing back cinema. I don’t think we’ll bring back vaudeville, though.”

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