Steve MacQueen watched last Friday’s 7 p.m. screening of I’m Still Here from the projection booth in the Film House at Burlington’s Main Street Landing. From up there, the executive director of the Vermont International Film Foundation had a clear view of 220 occupied seats. The Oscar-winning movie “sold out hard,” as MacQueen put it. “It was as crowded as that room can be.” The earlier show, at 4 p.m., did almost as well.
VTIFF’s MacQueen is overseeing the resurrection of in-person moviegoing in Burlington. Since Merrill’s Roxy Cinemas closed downtown in November, he’s been able to book an increasing number of newly released pictures alongside the offbeat, indie and foreign ones for which his nonprofit is known. (Film distributors favor first-run theaters. They are working with MacQueen in part because Burlington and South Burlington no longer have any.)
The Film House is a great place to watch contemporary fare such as Queer, Anora and Oh, Canada, all of which have been shown there in the past few months to large, appreciative audiences. More eclectic films often end up downstairs, next to the VTIFF office. Presciently, in the year before the Roxy went dark, VTIFF moved to Main Street Landing, bought a $400 popcorn machine and built an adjacent Screening Room that accommodates 35. It hosts shows there almost every weekend.
The result is a budding film complex on the Burlington waterfront, with movie action not just when VTIFF hosts festivals, in April and October, but all year round.
“I think we’re filling a gap. That’s fair,” MacQueen said, with characteristic modesty. “It’s really great to be able to do the little room downstairs and the big room upstairs.” His goal is to increase the number and range of movies on offer and also to show them “in a really beautiful, respectful way.”
What does that mean, exactly?
On a Wednesday evening in mid-March, I went with a friend to see The Room Next Door, playing in the Film House. The tickets were a competitive $12 a pop; $6 for students. I recognized a lot of people socializing in the lobby outside the theater. The popcorn was flowing.
We slipped past the chatting groups and found seats in the clean, comfortable hall. The lights stayed on until after MacQueen gave a brief and funny introduction to the movie, the latest from Pedro Almodóvar. Without giving anything away, he let us know that this film, starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, was a dramatic departure for the Spanish director, a longtime champion of the colorful and disenfranchised. For one, the film was shot in English; for another, it takes on the soberest of subjects: death with dignity.
The movie was weird but provocative. Afterward we happily lingered in our seats, talking about it. Not surprisingly, there were multiple discussions going on in the lobby when we finally left.
“Seeing a movie with a bunch of people, in a good place, with good projection and good sound and a feel-good room, it’s just an unbeatable experience. Always has been,” said MacQueen, who formerly worked for the Flynn and Circus Smirkus. He claims film is his favorite art form. “I think the Roxy going away sort of underlined for people how important it is. A ‘you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone’ kind of thing,” he said.
Nostalgic as that may sound, MacQueen is not trying to re-create the past. In fact, his programming often captures the moment. When film director David Lynch died on January 16, he quickly added a second showing of Wild at Heart — scheduled for nine days later — and promised to show Lynch’s other nine movies before the end of the year. He’s got four to go.
As you’ll find in our upcoming calendar listings, MacQueen is doing something smaller — “a tip of the cap” — for the actor Gene Hackman the weekend of April 11. He’s thrilled to report that Scarecrow, the “weirder, more obscure” of the two featured movies, has already sold out.
This article appears in Mar 26 – Apr 1, 2025.
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