Authored By seanphippster

One man had a vision to bring an art house theater to Chattanooga. And Chris Dortch’s vision is becoming reality.

Chattanooga Film Festival organizers have announced that the highly anticipated Cine-Rama theater will occupy the former Grocery Bar building on Main Street. The 12,000-square-foot building will offer room for more than 200 seats during film screenings, and plenty of space for other events such as comedy and live music.

Cine-Rama will also be the home of Mise En Scenesters, a film club with the goal of screening films that wouldn’t typically play in the area.

The new venue is expected to officially open in mid-April following the upcoming Chattanooga Film Festival March 31 to April 3. The CFF will be held at the Carmike Majestic 12 in downtown Chattanooga.

In the meantime, organizers have been busy converting what used to be a large, trendy grocery store into a working movie theater complex. Dortch, CFF executive director, said the ultimate dream would be to occupy a space of their own, but this location will be their home for at least the next few years.

“We love this place,” he said. “It’s big enough to not limit our imaginations.”

Cine-Rama was previously meant to occupy the basement of the Arts Building on East 11th Street, but the space wasn’t a good fit for screening films and only offered a capacity of about 80 people.

“It was logistics,” Dortch said. “We knew the foundations were trying to create a hive of leaders in the arts community, and we were honored to even be included in that. But the … studies we did [on the space] suggested that it was a square peg in a round hole.”

And with the growing reputation of the Southside as an entertainment district, Dortch hopes Cine-Rama can be a welcome addition to the scene.

“We’re looking at this place as kind of an incubator,” he said. “In the time we’re here-on a street that’s such a main drag-we hope that people learn that this place exists and we can create an institution.”

Dortch and crew are modeling the new space after theaters like the Alamo Drafthouse, which offers dinner, drinks, movies and events all under a single roof. They will also have an on-site arcade with donated games from The Coin-Op owner Brian Hennen’s collection.

The model is also “deliberately low-tech,” with less focus on the general aesthetics of the space and more effort toward film and the experience of viewing.

“We’re junkies for aspect ratio and things like that,” Dortch said. “For us, it’s a playground. We’ve never had the opportunity to have a place on our own.”

Dortch is already toying around with ideas for ways to make Cine-Rama a unique experience for viewers. The venue will maintain five projectors and multiple screens, allowing for everything from digital films to laser disc, VHS to beta.

There will also be an artist’s green room/editing room for filmmakers. Dortch wants filmmakers to use the space for their postproduction work. The space will also serve as an art gallery, already housing murals by Chattanooga artist Justin Butts and a large-scale piece by Matthew Dutton.

He’s also looking ahead to the annual Mainx24 event and a series he calls Lamex24 in which he plans to show the worst films ever made for 24 hours.

“If you have a 35 mm version of ‘Roadhouse,’ why not use the forces of that darkness?” he said.

Other nonprofits and organizations will also be encouraged to use the space. Announcements about those events and programs will be soon.

The dream to bring quality film to Chattanooga started seven years ago with the creation of MES. Now, with the third year of the CFF approaching and the construction of Cine-Rama, Dortch calls the journey a “surreal” experience.

“This is a giant grocery store that we’re turning into a theater, but I think we can make it charming,” he said. “To have the ability to get everybody under one roof is huge. It feels like Geppetto’s gone. We’re a real boy now.”