PROVIDENCE – Owners of the Cable Car Cinema, a Providence-based independent movie theater, announced the business will close on May 27 on a Facebook post Thursday afternoon.
In the post, husband and wife ownership team Daniel Kamil and Emily Steffian said: “After a 42 year run – it is time for the Cable Car Cinema to change. May 27th, 2018 will be the last day of operation at 204 South Main Street. … We did not come to this decision lightly. There were many business factors considered: the changing nature of film exhibition, the changing habits of media consumption and the fact that we do not own our building. For the past year, we have been negotiating with RISD (our landlord) different scenarios to make it feasible for the Cable Car Cinema to continue in its current spot. Unfortunately, that has not worked out. We could not come to any agreement that makes long-term financial sense for us while also satisfying their institutional needs.”
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A Rhode Island School of Design spokesperson was not immediately available to comment on the announcement.
“It was a complicated decision,” Steffian told PBN Friday morning, “I never thought we would be here.”
Kamil explained the couple had been trying to buy the facility from RISD for a number of years to no avail. For a small business, said Steffian, “the most important thing is to own your building. [The Cable Car Cinema] is not a huge money maker” but the couple needed equity to be able to plan the next five to 10 years of the company’s future.
Even after multiple suggestions for “long-term” lease solutions, said Kamil, “we were met with a lot of nos.”
He added that the lease would be up in September and while RISD gave them the opportunity to renew, they turned down the offer.
“It’s a business decision for people not to sell a building and it’s a business decision for us to respond to that,” said Steffian.
The Facebook statement confirmed the couple will continue to host its Providence Art & Design Film festival which is managed by their nonprofit organization, Providence Center for Media Culture, and additional “one-off” screenings will be facilitated by the group.
For example, at the end of May, screenings of “The Martian” will take place at Brown University’s Ladd Observatory.
In the Facebook post, Kamil and Steffian urged gift card holders to “use them while possible” before the closure on May 27. In the month remaining, the cinema will be playing “Godard Mon Amour” and “RBG.”
Kamil and Steffian are joint winners of a 2015 Carter Fellowships for Entrepreneurial Innovation from the Rhode Island Foundation. They were featured in a Providence Business News’ cover story about the now-seven-year-old Rhode Island Foundation program in December.
Emily Gowdey-Backus is a staff writer for PBN. You can follow her on Twitter @FlashGowdey or contact her via email, gowdey-backus@pbn.com.
