The historic Tower Theatre – a staple for independent film in Salt Lake City – will not open in time for the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, and there’s no clear timeline for when other screenings will resume at the venue.
The Tower temporarily shuttered in March 2020 due to COVID-19, just a month after the Sundance Film Festival wrapped, and has yet to reopen to the public. Now, the Salt Lake Film Society, which owns and operates the Tower, is looking to revamp the 94-year-old theater.
“We have not yet begun permitted construction and do not plan to do so until the architectural renderings are complete and we move a bit farther along in the project,” said Tori Baker, chief executive officer of the Salt Lake Film Society.
She did not offer a timeline for the project beyond noting a redesign is in the works, but said Prescott Muir Architects, an award-winning firm in Salt Lake City, has been tapped to create architectural renderings.
In the meantime, Baker said, the society is still considering construction or development partners for the project. She added that some of the remodeling plans are to create a new lobby design and improve ADA accommodations, but the iconic period seating will remain the same.
“The current velvet-lined seats … are historic to the ‘50s and an integral part of the space, both in visual appeal and in nostalgic experience,” she said.
Though the Tower has not been open for public screenings, it provided a shooting location for the Hallmark movie “Sister Swap: A Hometown Holiday,” which helped the theatre in its renovations.
“They repainted the space red for the film, but then had to re-paint it back to return the venue to us, so rather than have them repaint it exactly as-was, we chose a new color scheme that harkens to a classic time in cinema,” Baker said.
The Tower Theatre opened in 1928 and remains the oldest movie theater in Utah. In 1992, it became a venue for the Sundance Film Festival. Nearly a decade later, the Salt Lake Film Society established itself as a nonprofit to save the Tower from demolition, according to the Downtown Alliance. The society acquired Broadway Centre Cinemas shortly thereafter, which will continue as a Sundance Film Festival venue in 2023.
“It’s really important to keep that type of small theater alive … because it gives us diversity,” said Tyler Smith, associate professor of film at Salt Lake Community College. “It gives us … a different perspective than other theaters give us, so that’s really important for our community.”
Whereas larger movie chains largely reopened within a year after the pandemic began, the Broadway remained closed for 19 months.
“It wasn’t a matter of … ‘we have to get open again so we can start selling tickets again.’ They were thinking ahead about the community’s needs,” said Sean Means, culture editor and long-time film critic at The Salt Lake Tribune.
To meet its mission of creating “an immersive, transformative and engaged” art experience for the public, the society had to quickly adapt at the height of the pandemic and develop novel ways to reach audiences.
For example, the society developed SLFS@Home, a digital theater screen that allows patrons to buy tickets to the latest releases and watch them in the safety of their own home.
“They developed the online player so that it felt like a contained experience, and it felt like you were still going to the Salt Lake Film Society to see movies,” Means said.
Baker said the at-home platform expanded to 33 independent theaters around the country and became a vital source of revenue for their survival, even now that the height of the pandemic has passed.
“We continue to program our digital screen, so people from all over the U.S. can access our diversity cultural tours projects as well as some independent films that we curate,” Baker said.
Another way the society stayed connected to the community was through the Backlot Motor Cinema, a seasonal drive-in theater located in the studio backlot of the Redman Movies and Stories building in Sugar House.
“We just became a partner in this particular project,” said Bryan Clifton, owner of Redman. “There were nights when the place was just a whole place of its own, when we had 40 to 50 cars out in the parking lot. It was really quite inspiring to see how many people would show up.”
Baker said the society also held a “double the love” donation matching campaign in 2020, which raised $500,000 in funding to support the operations of the Backlot Motor Cinema programming.
The drive-thru theater experience ended in the fall of 2021, and Baker said there’s no immediate plans to bring it back.
“We talk frequently, and it is not impossible that we’d ‘pop’ that up again sometime in the future,” she said.
While Baker said the society survived the worst of the pandemic, the non-profit is still in recovery mode.
“Recovery years, from a funding perspective in the arts, can be more tough than during the actual crisis,” Baker said. “Mid-crisis, donations are urgent, and people are very motivated. The years following that crisis can sometimes be the hardest to begin smart growth forward without the continued support of donors and foundations.”
