(birds chirping) (dramatic music) (birds chirping) - Time is an interesting thing.

Can you travel in it?

If you think about it, we're traveling in time ourselves in our lives every day.

(loon calling) Time's limited, have to make the most of it.

The only significance that we have is whatever we do here.

My significance was building this dumb building in the middle of Bo Honk nowhere.

Okay, and to build a motion picture experience that was totally different than anything that existed.

All right, I gotta go up and get the rest of the lights and a list.

And a feeling of happiness that actually somebody came, somebody enjoyed, somebody remembered.

(dramatic music) (projector whirring) The concept of motion pictures in the beginning.

It was for people to go to a place they'd never been to and have a magical experience.

There was no art films back then, there was no deep dramas, basically it was to take you away from the humdrum life that you were living and you could have this wonderful experience and then go home, you know?

I think I should have thought twice about building this place as big as it is.

The very first shows were done in tents and storefronts and then they evolved into theaters.

(dramatic music) The whole concept behind it was to build a cathedral of the motion pictures, so it was almost like a religious experience.

This guy who had never been anywhere, done anything, made barely enough money to survive for a pittance, could go to this cathedral of motion pictures and watch a flicker.

- A million years dropped, now it could, it could be the interior.

- My favorite movie was The Time Machine, because I always was fascinated with time travel.

(dramatic music) It probably be fun to go to the future and see how this all turns out.

How did we get here?

(bright music) ♪ How many days ♪ My name is Keith Stata, Highlands Cinema in Kinmount, Ontario.

Well, the idea of Highland Cinema was to create an experience that you would remember.

There is nothing anywhere in the world like this theater, it just doesn't exist anywhere else.

It's not so much about the experience anymore with today's theaters, it's just like advertising plastic seeds and crap.

♪ He shares a simple secret ♪ ♪ With the wise man ♪ ♪ He's a stranger in a strange land ♪ ♪ Just a stranger in a strange land ♪ ♪ Tell me why ♪ ♪ He's a stranger in a strange land ♪ Might not have enough space.

May have to rethink this Saturday.

(letters scraping) Watch me fall off, that'll be good.

(laughing) Oh dear spider, don't want to kill the poor little guy.

Would you manage to get outta there?

Come on, scoot, there, good bye.

Now I don't wanna step on it.

The importance of a movie theater in the town was that up until recently, it was sort of a cultural place where you know as a child you went to the matinees and you saw movies with your friends and then later on you had a girlfriend, you took her on a date to the theater and it was a special place.

(car engine whirring) If you're gonna put a theater in, nevermind five theaters in a town of 300 people, then you're gonna have to make it so people talk about it.

The town of Kinmount is basically 300 people, including cats and dogs and a few stores on the main street.

(dog barking) Graveyard's big.

(dramatic music) The main industry in Kinmount was the lumber mills.

That was a big industry and there was two huge mills.

(dramatic music) There was a massive fire in 1900 burned everything.

So if you look at pictures of the 1900s in Kinmount, there's no trees.

Some of the town burned at the time too.

(dramatic music) And then 1942 I think it was, the whole main street went again.

What's left of the town is what didn't burn down or got rebuilt, not a lot got rebuilt.

(water splashing) The town, which used to be a bustling center of activity is pretty much just a little way station for people passing through, you know, so having the theater here, that creates a big problem.

We've gotta drag people here that otherwise wouldn't come, because we're not a destination for anything really.

(car engine whirring) (popcorn popping) The wholesale actually sent me some Skittles one year that was five years old.

They were all stuck together in the box, so obviously somebody in their warehouse is not reading dates.

So I sent them back and the next year I got them back again.

This is trip one, okay.

(stapler banging) (dramatic music) We went into construction about 1975, but it actually didn't open till 79 and then it was pretty rough.

(hammer banging) If you talk to people who came here that first year, yep, there were a lot of unfinished things.

- The first year he had the theater, I decided on a Tuesday night to go to the movies and I drove up and was quite surprised that it was a house.

Anyway, I parked the car and went up the walkway and around the side where I assumed somebody would be selling tickets but nobody was there.

So I went in the door and the only person I could find was a gentleman in the women's washroom, muddying the drywall and fixing it up and it happened to be Keith.

So anyway, he sold me a ticket.

I got some popcorn and went in and I was the only person in the theater.

He ran the movie for me and it was kind of strange to being the only person there.

(projector whirring) Afterwards he invited me for a cup coffee.

So we sat up beside the projection booth and chatted for an hour or so, and that was my first experience at the Highland Cinema.

(bright music) - It wasn't very successful because everybody thought it was a TV in the living room.

It did look like a house.

The actual number one theater is basically the family room.

(dramatic music) I was designing a house with a theater in it.

1986 I decided if we were gonna sit around for one little theater, we might as well sit around for two little theaters, so we added 60 seats in a number two theater, added a little bit to the lobby.

(dramatic music) Things got a little busier, so in 1988 we added the number three theater.

(dramatic music) We decided to add another small theater, which was that time was 60 seats.

(dramatic music) We built this long honk and hall all the way around the building and sink number four at the back.

Sammy had this big empty hall going around with nothing in it, so this is what created displays with mannequins and clothing and toys and the books and the technology, which is morphed into 17, 40 foot sea containers, we have a 40 foot seat container just full of paper.

We have a 40 foot seat container just full of film, clothing, furniture, 40 foot seat container just full of mannequins.

In 96 we opened number five, which was another 70 seat theater that gave us five screens.

(dramatic music) It's sitting on 20 acres in the bush.

It doesn't look like a theater, has a massive museum, all the theaters are unique, it's just doesn't exist anywhere else.

(dramatic music) That used to open outside, but then it all got enclosed, but after number five was built, there was a whole bunch of additions happened, every year we were adding on, I think there was 8, 28 different building permits.

(popcorn popping) (dramatic music) We created the memory lane hall for the customers, and what we attempted to do was to take every decade and put in things that people who were young in that decade would remember.

(dramatic music) We have yearbooks in there.

We got Peewee Herman with a teddy bear.

We got Smurfs, the tape recorder guide for 1972.

Photographs of different people and movie stuff, and there's gay magazines in here, there's straight magazine, there's a Playboy in every case, there's a comic book in every case, there's a novel in every case.

Every year we update little bits and pieces to bring back things about what have happened currently.

(dramatic music) The idea was to make the connections, so either with the technology or the news or personal items.

My mother is here, see the little girl in the white dress.

That's me there.

That was my class, and that's Ivy Gilmore.

All these young, vibrant people with dreams, our dad, so live life, you know, while you can, 'cause at some point it all ends.

- [Customer] Hey look at Mickey Mouse right there.

- What we attempted to do was to put enough stuff in those cases to jog your memory about when you were young, before the mortgage payments, the alimony, the divorce, the car, the car crash, seems to work on most people, but I usually caution people not to remember back too far 'cause that can be dangerous to your health, so certainly dangerous to mine.

There used to be a hall at the back, which displayed clothing for a 100 years, but somehow the horror hall took over and hadn't been able to get the clothes back in.

(popcorn popping) This'll take a minute.

(suspenseful music) The whole idea of the horror hall was I had a chance to buy Alien, which is one of the Stan Winston a 100 copies that were made.

I thought that'd be kinda neat.

We couldn't do just one thing, so I thought, well maybe we should make a hall, 'cause people do remember horror movies.

It started out fairly skimpy, but now it's worked up to just about everything you can imagine, and every year we add one or two things.

(suspenseful music) The biggest horror of all is the Toronto Maple Leaf hockey fan waiting for the Maple Leafs to win the Stanley Cup, and of course, as you can see, he died and his beer went flat.

The joke about a mannequin is the proper way to carry is crotch and throat.

This guy has got nothing to grab, don't knock him over.

Really?

Okay, you stay there.

We try to update it to some degree, we update the museum.

A lot of people walk right through and don't even notice anything, but the ones who do stop and look, notice things.

- Is there a spider there?

I'm not scared of this.

(indistinct) - [Customer] Those are scary.

- I'm not even scared.

- [Keith] Well, we have an intercom system which we can use if we want to add sound effects or say something to somebody or make a noise.

(wolf howling) - [Customer] See?

Terrifying.

No.

- He laughed.

(laughing) (popcorn popping) - [Interviewer] How many projectors do you think you have in this theater?

- Don't really know, (laughing) hard to tell, 5, 600, 700,000, who really knows, probably best not to count.

(bright music) Kinda got addicted collecting projectors.

I saw there's all these theaters that are closing all over the place, and I'm interested at this point in old projectors, better place to get old projectors than theaters.

You get a copy of the Poston books.

Poston books are they listed?

Every movie theater in the province, you could track back to who owned the building, if the building's been demolished, if it's still there, if there's equipment still in it, that's where all the equipment came.

Well a lot 'em were theaters that had closed and stuff was still in there, so that led to taking out 450 theaters right across the country, down into the states, out to BC and all over the place.

This was outta the Palace Theater in Blind River.

This came from Chicago, don't ask me where.

This whole hallway is Simplex projectors from 1912 up to around 1970.

And the Vossman is from the 3D Theater at Cinesphere in Toronto.

This projector would've been, I don't know, 1916 or 17, and it's kind of neat because the operator chopped a hole in it, and he put a pipe out the building so he didn't have to breathe carbon dust.

And we had to dig this thing out from underneath three feet of pigeon [...], pigeon carcasses and fallen plaster and then there was no stairs.

So we took it apart and lowered the sections to the ground to get it outta there.

This is the first projector that we had in our theater and this was the one that we had later before we went to 35.

Most people look at them as rusty pieces of metal, but I look at them as memories.

You have to think back to what they did, and if you think about all these little home movie projectors, and if you think about all these theater machines, there are literally millions and millions of people who sat in the dark and enjoyed that special moment, whether it was Bambi's mom dying or Lassie or whatever the hell it was, or your kids growing up and your grandkids and it's all was in these machines and produced the magic that the people saw either in the theater or in their homes.

That was the medium by which the picture was shown, so to me, they're memories.

(projector whirring) And if you go back to 1897, there's a hell of a lot of memories in all those machines, you know.

(dramatic music) (projector whirring) I was born in Kinmount in 1947.

My ancestors came here in 1860, so we've been here a while.

I was born at a house at the bottom of the hill that since burnt down.

We didn't have a lot of money, we didn't have a car, we didn't have indoor plumbing until I was 14, and yeah, the out house at 40 below was really exciting.

It was a whole different world.

(dramatic music) (water trickling) My mother was strict.

There was no enforcement of the law by my father, he was a pushover.

He was nice as pie, would do anything for you when he was sober, but he became an angry drunk, he was a different person.

I still remember Christmases, him being drunk and he tried to strangle my mother a few times.

(projector whirring) He was as much of a father as he could be.

I remember one night he brought me home, a baby raccoon in the middle of the night, so that was another pet I had.

I wound up with a raccoon, a rabbit, a dog and a cat.

I was pretty shy.

I didn't do sports.

I was interested in photography and I was interested in movies and reading.

I learned how to cook early.

I could make pies in grade eight.

The other kids were out playing baseball, I was making pies, you know?

Going to the movies was tricky because we didn't have a car till I was 18, so Bob Stone and Alberta would shop in Minden for groceries on a Saturday afternoon.

So Keith and Kenneth Kernohan and I would go to The Beaver at 2:00 to watch some matinees.

The only problem with this was when Alberta and Bob were ready to go home, Keith got hauled outta the theater.

So in The Time Machine, they were just going down the wells where the morlocks were when I had to go home.

So getting to see the whole movie was a bit of a problem.

I started taking cut out figures and we used a flashlight to put this on the screen.

So we do these little shows for my aunt and my mom.

Eventually they bought me a projector, this little eight millimeter projector, the cheapest one you could get, it was a little Brumberger film projector.

We set up a little theater in the wood shed and we used to run movies for 2 cents a piece.

It was great until one day the skunk came in and that kind of ended the show.

And then I got interested in film, so during high school we did a number of films in eight millimeter and eventually something in 16.

We did an old time comedy, which all we needed to go with that was honky tonk music, so that was pretty simple.

(bright music) We did science fiction movie that was more complex.

I remember we used a car hub as a flying saucer, from there it evolved.

(dramatic music) - [Interviewer] You know the science fiction one with the guys in capes and the Speedos, can you describe that film?

- It was a bunch of people who went into this fog and wound up in the future.

(dramatic music) ♪ In the year 25, 25 ♪ What was happening was they went into this old church and they were transported to another place.

We hired a couple of the school jocks.

We envisioned them wearing this futuristic clothing, which we've been a little naive in reality.

(dramatic music) ♪ In the year 35, 35 ♪ Little simplistic, oh yeah.

Time travel again.

It was just the adventure of doing it.

♪ In the year 45, 45 ♪ ♪ Ain't gonna lead your tears walking into your eyes ♪ It's hard to describe it, it's pretty juvenile.

♪ Nobody's gonna look at you ♪ If I had done what I wanted to do, that is what I would've done, I would've made movies, that's what I really wanted to do, but it just wasn't gonna happen, you know, I wasn't gonna go to the states.

I didn't know anybody.

I didn't have enough money to do anything, so more practical things set in and then the interest in showing movies as opposed to making movies.

So showing movies was an achievable thing, making movies was not achievable.

We built this special room in 1967 and my father helped me.

It was 28 feet long and 14 feet wide, which had a nine by 12 foot bed sunk on the floor.

12 foot movie screen, quadraphonic sound system, broad loomed walls, mood lighting.

We had a cube at the back that had a color wheel and a strobe light and a black light and a Chinese table with cushions to sit down.

Jesus, if I sat down there now, I need a hoist to get off the floor.

(dramatic music) In 1975, I morphed into construction, which I was in for 26 years, build cottages, and a motel and houses and so on.

The theater came about because of the construction.

If we had have had to hire a contractor to build the theater, theater would never have been built, and that was the beginning of all the problems.

(projector whirring) (dramatic music) I'm so worried about the mess everything's in.

It's kind of unchartered territory as to where we're going from here.

I think theaters have been forgotten.

What I'm gonna do is the bottom of the sign where it says Merry Christmas, I'm gonna put up, we're all in this together, but on the top of the sign, I've already changed it, we're reopening on May the first, 2030, so we'll see if anybody notices.

I'm not really impressed with this whole scenario, it's just the fear of not knowing what's gonna happen next.

Like really?

Well what is gonna happen next?

(dramatic music) All the best laid plans can go up in smoke in a hurry.

You might be the death nail of theaters.

Ah, some big changes coming.

(projector whirring) - And finally this evening there's a big house in Northeastern Ontario that's likely the only one of its kind in the country.

1000s of film goers file into the house every year to enjoy first run movies.

(4-wheeler engine whirring) (dramatic music) - Is it profitable?

- Well you'd be surprised, last July and August we had 6,000 paid admissions to the theater, most of 'em are tourists so far.

(indistinct chattering) - You get to see a bunch of stuff you wouldn't normally see anywhere else.

This place is like one of the coolest places ever.

- The theater, pretty much what happened was we made it so strange that people talked about it and then the news media on a slow day they'd come here.

- [Reporter] Highland Cinemas offers a wide selection of first run feature film.

- We thought it would be probably something with like a bed sheet on the wall in this garage, but it was this great professional little theater with all this stuff in here.

- I can't make sense of it all, but it's just lots of stuff.

- [Reporter] And Stata tries to please all age groups.

The shows run throughout the summer until the Labor Day weekend.

- [Keith] There was over 160 articles.

I mean all the major TV stations have been here at least twice.

- [Reporter] Keith Stata.

- [Reporter] Keith Stata.

- [Reporter] Keith Stata.

- [Reporter] Keith Stata.

- [Reporter] Keith Stata.

- [Reporter] Keith Stata, the man himself.

- Pleased to meet you.

- [Reporter] A visit to his theaters is like stepping into a time machine.

- {Theater staff] $7.

- [Reporter] The more people who paid to see the movies, the more theaters Keith had to build.

- Was it any good?

- Yeah.

- You liked it?

I'm very lucky to actually be able to make a living from something I enjoy doing.

- You come here and it's just amazing to see what he's done with the place.

- [Reporter] One thing's for sure, as long as people keep visiting his house, Keith will keep bringing Hollywood home.

- One time one of my friends came out and she thought there was a dog by her vehicle and it was a bear.

- We love everything that he does and every year there's something new.

- I've watched some of the most important movies of my life here.

- I skipped dinner to have popcorn.

(laughing) - [Keith] Technically speaking, we shouldn't exist in a town this small.

(dramatic music) I think people come for the atmosphere and the novelty of it and the fact that we do try to get everything as great as we can.

- [Reporter] Highland cinemas in the house that Keith built continues to grow.

- Can I get you guys to pull in and let the door close, you're gonna let all those mosquitoes in and they're gonna eat you all the way through the next show, so you're really gonna regret it if you keep that door open tonight.

- [Theater Staff] Come on in guys.

- As many as you can get in and let the door close, because all those bugs out there will come in here.

Tonight, we're opening Solo.

We had great hopes for the movie, but if last night's an indicator, it may be going down the great flush.

But anyway, we have a storm trooper here tonight, his name is Brandon.

(laughing) You look pretty good.

- [Storm Trooper] Greeting Citizens.

(Keith laughing) - I've always been the theater, it was my idea, it was my stupid idea to build it, my stupid idea to do what we did and yeah, and we lucked out and it worked.

- [Customer] Whoo Darth Vader.

- [Storm Trooper] Hold on Trooper's the law.

- [Customer] He's got a gun there.

He's a real deal.

- Success with this place was just making a lot of people happy.

If I had really wanted to be successful, I would never have stayed in Kinmount and built a theater, let me put it that way.

(indistinct chattering) - Greetings citizens.

Ladies and gentlemen, the boys and Girls of all ages.

Our show here guarantees performance like no others.

Well when your Imperial Fleet enemy gets here, we're gonna knock them in.

Enjoy your show.

(audience clapping and cheering) - Roxy in.

Yeah, food.

I gotta get them a bigger dish for dry food, 'cause they're getting bigger, they're eating more.

You don't need any food.

Oh, Roxy, oh she's gone to eat the cat food.

Roxy, did you eat that on me?

You did, didn't you?

Yeah, no Mars, get in there.

Come on, nope, nope.

Come on this way.

Here we go.

You got a mess, look at this place, oh my God.

They're all named after chocolate bars.

This is Hershey.

The black one is Mars.

That's Sally, 'cause she was the feral one that we caught for the end.

The one with the white feet is Twix and the other one is Arrow.

(laughing) We always had cats.

We had like five or six or seven and usually from some accident that happened or something came along, needed a home and it almost seemed there was an explosion where people were just dumping them all over the place.

They become disposable, people don't spay and neuter, they have all the kittens, they just dump the kittens.

Yeah, I don't know if they need dry food out there, but I also don't know if somebody needed water, because it seemed to have an awful lot of pitchers.

We have accumulated in the last 10, 15 years, 42 cats living in 11 houses that got constructed over a period of time around the theater.

Christoph, there's your treats.

Yes, Boots, here you go boy, there that's you.

42 cats is a huge expense.

It's 40 hours a week in work, litter box takes six hours.

Hi Tiger.

No treats, yeah here, everybody gets treats.

- 6,000 cans of Friskies give or take a few.

That's two days there of cat dishes, that's what that is.

They become an attraction for the tourists because the kids seem to know their names, they must memorize them 'cause I hear them running around calling them by name.

Oh and then I get the joy of feeding Gumpy.

Now I shove the food in his face before he gets too rambunctious.

Yes, I see ya, not putting my hand in there, back up.

(cat hissing) Ah, I'm gonna spit.

That's a stranger, now don't hit me 'cause you don't like him, he's a old Tom cat and he's really cranky, just like some old man I guess, that's why we call him Gumpy.

Where the hell's the ice cream?

Don't tell me we're running out too.

Oh that's Snowball.

Yeah, I didn't have time to bury her, we froze her.

Him, it's actually a him.

I had one cat that was in the freezer for 11 years, took a while to get to it.

Yeah, there's one where we were doing something, of course every year we ran Rocky Horror.

There's the first sheet.

I think it was almost the ninth before we got open, 'cause like usual we weren't ready.

Well there's the prices too.

Adults for 3 bucks, students 2.50 and children $1.50.

I get one of these out and give it to Roland.

Yeah, there you have souvenir.

First week, 1979.

- Still 16, right?

- [Keith] Yeah.

Roland started working for me when he was 12 years old.

- [Interviewer] Roland, what was the hardest part of the last 40 years?

- He worked in the construction for me for 26 years.

When we added number four and number five I had to take out a considerable loan and he put money into it at that point.

He looks after the staff and the candy bar and the tickets and I basically look after everything else.

Well you better tell me 'cause I've pretty much paid for the cash register.

Well you haven't been around to discuss this, you said you weren't putting any more money.

- I didn't quit last night.

- We don't necessarily agree on what makes the theater work.

I don't think he sees the relevance of the uniqueness of the place, he just takes it all for granted.

Have you seen the sign that says dad in the ticket window?

Yeah, somebody was in here and they thought that all the staff were his kids.

- Number three straight down, okay?

Right now the theater comes to me when Keith passes away, but I said to Keith, we don't know how it's gonna work.

I could pass away first and I'd like to see it go to somebody who's gonna continue it, not just turn it into a cash cow, right?

And sell everything off and then it just gets bulldozed.

- Now I got another cat to bury, so he's in the freezer.

- So she never know what she'll eat around this place.

- Yeah, Teddy.

- Oh he is a very good friend, close friend.

When he is complaining, that's showing he does care.

- The first time I sent him down with a gallon of paint and said don't spill it, and he fell off the ladder.

(laughing) So yeah, anyway.

- You're lucky to have two or three good friends in your lifetime.

You'll have a lot of friends, but who's gonna be there in the end?

That's a friend.

Are you sure we don't have a little vacuum they can use?

- I do, but you have to educate someone in the use of the vacuum.

I can give them a vacuum and show them how to use it.

Yeah, I know it's dust everywhere, just don't look in the corners.

Don't move anything, don't touch anything.

You reach behind and touch anything and you're covered in it.

- Might get bit.

- See here's the dreaded color.

Blue means be worried, yellow means really be worried, red means you're [...].

I love the combination.

- We got a red light - Who had built something this stupid?

We're gonna put it in and we're gonna pull it out, and this is really intelligent, and we're gonna put it in, and we're gonna pull it out, and we're gonna put it in and then we're gonna pull it out and then we're gonna put it in.

It's like having sex and we're gonna take this board and we gotta wiggle and we jiggle and [...], I can't even get a pry on it.

Now, this is bull [...].

Pound the God damn thing back in.

Now it's in, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2.

There.

We get a lot of good comments on our popcorn from our customers.

Everybody says we make the best popcorn in the country.

There's a recipe since 1965 I have known, the only way to make good popcorn is Weaver Gold popcorn.

That's the only brand you can buy.

Savor All is the only season you ever use and coconut oil is the only oil you ever use.

That's the only way to make it right, everything else is garbage.

(pan banging) Most people think it's a lot better than Cineplex and all the rest of them.

It's made the old way, not the new way.

New way, this canola oil bull [...], canola oil tastes like fish.

I don't like fishy popcorn.

Our customers love the popcorn but also all the animals in the woods love the popcorn, 'cause at the end of the day we give it to the animals.

You guys like popcorn, don't ya?

Yep, (laughing) yep.

I gotta remember tonight to feed the raccoons.

They get the leftover popcorn and they get some dog food every night, because if I let them near the building, they figured out how to break into the attic and did thousands of dollars in damage.

Okay, the bears are the same issue.

This is one of our favorites.

If you don't give him food, he's in here flipping garbage pails.

So we feed him in the woods and we never see them.

That's one night, 20 gallons.

Oh mosquitoes.

That's raccoons, I leave them a bag.

You have to spread the bags, because Mr. Greedy will take everything if you don't.

You can't skip a day or he'll come in and visit us.

(dramatic music) We have Blondie, the deer, we have Boo and Lard Ass the bear and we have a bunch of raccoons, like 40.

We have the skunk, which is an interesting piece of tape I got.

The raccoon's trying to take the bag and she chases the raccoon away, then she grabs the bag and drags the popcorn away.

So yeah, so there's everything in the woods eating popcorn, the birds, the squirrels, and you know they're all out there, they're like our popcorn, it's good popcorn.

Tasha, we have something just for you.

- Okay.

- You know you're afraid of the bear, right?

You're having nightmares.

- Yeah.

- Okay, so if you want, you can take this out.

You see the bear.

(alarm buzzing) Now there's gonna be one of two reactions.

- Okay.

The first one's probably he's gonna run, or he may just knock it outta your hand and stomp on it.

So if you want use it, it's to be left here.

If you drop it and break it, I ain't buying another one.

- Okay.

Okay?

Oh you're on bare bag pickup.

Avery you know how to do it right?

Go, I'm gonna feed them.

By the way take a pair of gloves.

There's a newspaper someone wiped their ass on out there you need to pick up, take a garbage bag.

(birds chirping) (dramatic music) Simon, let's go, Simon, over here.

Today I've had a problem in the fall where we've got all new staff and I don't trust any of them.

Kids, they don't necessarily want work.

It's always following the transport comes with the popcorn.

'cause 120 bags and 72 pails of oil, it's gotta go right into the back.

- Like this?

- No, turn it the other way, yeah, slide it in.

The problem is by the time you teach 'em how to work and do anything, they're gone.

And you're gonna have to learn to do food, otherwise we're gonna have a crisis.

I think Will can be trained to do Popcorn maybe, we hope.

So that's the problem today is getting staff that wanna work, staff that are available to come in and staff that can actually do something.

- [Staff] What is Keith like?

- Okay, we have an issue, I just went through the closet.

All brooms go with handles down in the barrel, heads up.

Every one of them was the other way around, so let's make sure we get that straight, 'cause they've been told this and I don't know why we're going back through this again, 'cause nobody obviously told you.

- I mean he can be kind of an ass, but (laughing) are you gonna bleep that out?

(laughing) Oh no.

- So I brushed his cats and I cleaned one of the places upstairs and he told me I did a great job after, but he said I missed one thing and I was supposed to wipe the cat's butt.

- Keith literally just sends us out to the parking lot and it's like, "Oh, just pick up rocks and twigs."

And it's like, "Okay."

- Last year the bear started getting really close and we were all kind of scared and he's like, "You'll be fine.

I just smashed a planter over its head.

Just pick its butt and it won't attack you."

- And we have to move a lot of cat litter, like a lot.

(dramatic music) (popcorn popping) - I kinda look forward to coming into work every day, it's fun.

- This place is the best in the whole world.

- We have to take out a body, got it?

I'm gonna take his head while I'm at it, there.

Okay, now let's not wing 'em into anything that's bad in the corner.

You okay?

- Yeah.

- Don't fall down the stairs, that'll be bad too.

Hi Muggles.

Our biggest problem facing us is staff, and since we hired them all at once, they all had prom at once.

We had no staff that night.

They all graduated at once, they all went to university at once.

So then suddenly we have nobody in the building working.

Like Roland says, we're both getting older, we can't run this place by ourselves.

The biggest problem we could hit the wall with is nobody to work here.

(projector whirring) I don't know, it seems to me that chaos is raining with COVID.

There's so many people in distress, so many businesses in distress.

Nobody can figure out how this works, so I don't know what to think.

Gotta get through this.

If we were to open, you know, would the movies be there?

Would the customers be there?

There's a whole different world right now, it's totally uncharted territories.

The thing that bothers me now is anything ever happens to me, how this is gonna survive and the cats, especially are protected at all costs and nothing makes any sense anymore.

(birds chirping) I'm just gonna walk down, I'll see you when I get down there in a minute.

Okay, all right, yeah, all right.

(dramatic music) When I was a kid there was almost eight gas stations here, now we got none.

The town has definitely changed.

No school anymore, not as many stores, not as many jobs, not as many of anything really.

(dramatic music) There's nothing in Kinmount except Kinmount Fair.

Kinmount Fair is big but even it's declining.

The Kinmount Fair was basically to my mind, always a massive family reunion where everybody came back that were born here to see all the people they hadn't seen for a year, but those people are dying off now.

- [Announcer] Congratulations to everyone.

- Kinmount's lost so much, they've lost their gas stations and different things, and I think the theater has been one of the mainstays really.

As a business person in Kinmount the theater added an awful lot.

You just knew when the first show started people were gonna deal with me too.

- I think the theater means a lot to people.

It's a big part of Kinmount for sure.

- The whole summer's been like being in a stew pot in Borneo, be cold as hell and lots of snow all winter.

- [Patron] Freezing cold this winter.

- Yeah.

- It's like a movie theater in the city but with so much more personality to it, and I think it's a huge thing, more than he realizes, I think.

- So anyway, whatever, we just feed him 20 gallons of popcorn a night and he stays in the woods, usually.

- [Resident] He's promoted Kinmount so much.

- Time's flying.

- Not just having the different movies, but the museum and the person he is and now all his cats as well.

- Growing up in a small town, the most excitement I had was working at the Kinmount theater when I was a teenager, bringing in firewood, cleaning out kitty litter boxes and dressing mannequins.

If the theater was gone it would be really hard on the town.

- [Food Cart Worker] Here's one of two sir.

- Okay.

- [Food Cart Worker] Got that.

- It's quite a place, quite a place.

It's an experience to go there.

I don't think people really realize what it is, but when they get there, they can't believe all the stuff in there.

- How are you today?

- Still good.

- Right on.

- Parade's at 12:00 isn't it?

- 12:00, yeah.

- Yeah.

- The theater is Keith, and Keith is a theater and as long as he's got air in his lungs, he will run that theater, (laughing) I know he will.

(bright music) (dramatic music) - People can't believe that in the small town there's a cinema with five different theaters, it is the main heartbeat of the town, employing teenagers going to school.

Keith supports all the local events that are going on.

It really does keep the town going.

(Keith laughing) (dramatic music) - But what the future holds for that place, I don't know.

I didn't know if I could see it there in 20 years, I don't know.

(dramatic music) (feet clomping) - We cut all this brush down two years ago and look at it.

(feet clomping) (letters scraping) Friday and Monday are different times for two of the shows.

If you look at what we did, rather than wasting time on two movies, on the two slow nights, we just put one, because you're running a theater with 190 seats in it with three people in it.

on the second show.

Our second shows over the years have weakened.

You know the last couple of weeks it's been missionary work, 'cause you're sitting here with, you know, 10, 15 people, maybe two or three people in a theater, you know.

Well we're open five and a half months, we only make money for nine weeks, and you get like a dollar on an adult admission after everybody else gets their money.

And on that dollar I have to pay all the property taxes, I have to pay all the insurance, all the hydro, all the wages, all the expenses, it's $20,000 a year in maintenance alone, just if we're lucky, the heat does affect attendance.

If it's too hot or in between, which is where it is right now, they tend to nice weather stay at the lake.

If it gets cool at night, we tend to see them more.

The other problem is the movies, maybe they're just not interested.

The Hollywood has an issue today of movies that nobody's interested in.

You know, last year was a good example, they made all those reboots and they all rebooted into a cliff somewhere.

With the advent of Netflix and Amazon and all kinds of people making movies and streaming them, how is that gonna affect the theaters?

9.95 a month and all that [...] you can watch.

Well the first thing they need to do is to stop the illegal downloading.

When we ran trailers they'd say, well I think we'll download that one.

So now they're just gonna go steal it, because Hollywood is impotent to stop them.

And the second thing they need to do is to make movies for the audiences that buy tickets, and that's older people and that's the audience they forgot.

Mama Mia, we have Mama Mia, eight weeks, the first one was all old people and they came back three or four times, they don't download.

I gotta go start another movie.

(dramatic music) In 2012, the industry was told that if you were gonna stay in business, that you would have to convert to digital technology.

Question then became do we stay open?

Do we close?

It seemed that when it was first installed, we got an awful lot of red lights and glitches.

Then the server, one of these is server was there, but we don't know which one.

One of these is server was there, but we don't know which one.

Where it was before I knew what was wrong.

I could always tell you exactly what was wrong.

It was the intermittent, it was a bearing, a gear, motor, with this nobody knows what's wrong.

Well, we'll swap it out for a new part and see how that goes, that's the problem, nobody knows how to fix it.

Everything today is [...], like it just sucks.

Ah, there it is, oh yeah, $4,000 for this piece of [...].

I used to be able to go out this door to my telescope.

I have a 10 inch telescope on the roof and go look at the stars and calm down.

It's too much effort now, I don't bother.

A million contacts here.

Dumbest thing ever.

This is what scares me, I'm supposed to hit it, like seriously guys, I'm hitting a board that's $4,000, 'cause it won't go back into the slot.

Okay, whatever.

Check this connection, check that connection, check another connection.

What I found was just reboot, you know like pull the [...] plug on the God damn...

If it's got a network error, pull the plug on the router and plug it back in and all's good.

There we go, go hit the key.

Okay, hit the key.

Okay, let's see what happens.

Does everything happen?

Now we got it, all right, good, we're good.

It's just like a speeding train and you can't get off the God damn train and it's going faster every year.

So I don't know, time is a problem, so that's why I like the movie, The Time Machine.

I want to freeze everything.

I want to go back, spend about 10 years getting caught up, come back and impress the [...] out of everybody that I'm now caught up, isn't this amazing?

What the [...] were you guys doing?

Well this is the problem, the time machine doesn't exist.

We're gonna have to fast forward a few centuries to get this to work, other than that, I'm screwed.

(water babbling) (soothing music) (bird cawing) (soothing music) I always wonder why I never can get anything done in the winter.

It seems that you get outta bed, then you have to light the fire then I have to feed the dogs, medicated food, pills.

Then if it's snowed, I gotta go shovel.

(soothing music) (shovel scraping) If the driveway ices, then I have to sand the driveway, that's like an hour.

It's two hours to feed the cats.

We have to seal the ventilation systems for the projectors.

Holy [...] by the time you add all that up, there's not a hell of a lot left of the day.

(wind chimes clanging) Oh, there's more [...].

You know what I like best about winter?

Dog [...] frozen.

The weather says that we're gonna get this much Thursday and again on Sunday.

That doesn't sound good.

[...], I'm gonna be lucky to get it all done in three hours today.

There's a lot of paths, there's 900 feet of paths to keep open.

People say, "Why don't you keep the theater open in the winter?"

Ha, right, so I can have a heart attack.

It'd be great tow business, but no show business.

(soothing music) - Mr. Gumpy.

Yeah, the grumpiest cat in the world.

You hiss and spit and swat everything, don't you?

Yeah.

(soothing music) - Come on here, what are you doing?

Come on, come on Dukey, let's go.

(dog barking) When we open the theater, it takes a solid month to undo everything that was done through the winter.

It takes a solid month to get the equipment ready, to get the water back on.

In the fall, it takes a solid month to board the building up, move all the stock, all that [...] has to be done and then we try to get maintenance done.

So this year all we did was get the [...] done and we didn't get any maintenance.

Maintenance is an issue 'cause the building's 18,500 square feet, there is maintenance.

The roofing is now turned into a leak in the lobby.

So next spring better be nice, because we can't wait, this has to be done, we're at the point now where it can't wait any longer.

(dramatic music) I got so much to do, I'll never live long enough.

So I guess I'm never gonna get lonely, I'm just gonna get dead.

Roxy, what have you done?

Come on.

(dramatic music) - [Reporter] Over the past few days we've seen COVID-19 spread around the world at an even faster pace, Canada is no exception.

(dramatic music) As the virus continues its spread, we've decided to take increasingly aggressive steps to keep you and your family safe.

I know that these measures are far reaching, they are exceptional circumstances, calling for exceptional measures.

(phone ringing) - [Answering Machine] You reached the offices of Highland Cinemas and Keith Stata.

Call us for movie information.

- Hello, world's ending.

Trump says that we're all be back in work in a week, and Ford says, oh a couple more weeks, but I don't think they want to tell everybody the truth.

If there's a miracle we might get open at the end of June, but I don't believe in miracle, so the problem is, I think it's more likely we're gonna miss the whole freaking summer.

It's a problem that I've never seen in 72 years and a problem theaters never seen in 41 years.

So it's kind of unchartered territory as to where we're going from here and having some mercator, if the film companies were all of a sudden to decide to stream and make any money, but I can't see this working.

Who the hell's gonna have any money if half the country's laid off?

Well, we'll have to somehow figure out how to go through a year with no income and owe a ton of money when we open next year, if it doesn't all happen again.

(dramatic music) The posters from last year are still up.

The doors are boarded up, there's mold on the carpet, Oh my God, (laughing) it's not good.

I don't see any [...]in way in hell we'll get open this year, and it's starting to get really scary because getting the vaccinations done by the end of September means nothing to me, our season's over in mid August.

(dramatic music) Hollywood did find out that they make money with not going into theaters on the big movie, and they're gonna be releasing on streaming all summer.

(dramatic music) I don't think we're gonna get open next summer for sure, just the mess everything's in, it's not gonna get better fast enough.

We had trouble next year, that's over.

I'm getting too old for all this fighting.

No, well maybe I should retire, I mean, on my government pension, I wouldn't have anything to worry about.

I kinda look and think where the [...] did all the time go?

All the struggle to build the theater, you know, the nights that I didn't have 10 cents to rub against the other, that I was just gonna do it and see if hell would freeze over or not or what would happen next.

The theater is important, I mean we've put so much time and so much effort into this place, somehow it has to continue.

That's the thing about movies, you know, Ramon Novarro and Sal Mineo and all these guys, they still look great, they're all dead.

(whirring) Now, I had all this cleaned up and then in the fall it was a big rush to get stuff done before weather, so no tools ever got put back, like the theater becomes one giant storage thing.

As you can see, it couldn't get much [...]in worse.

This is my construction zone for the cat house.

Like there was no canopy this year, there was nowhere to do anything and it kept raining, so I said [...] it and did it here.

This is all donated food here, all over the place.

So like, it's like cat food heaven.

This juice and stuff is all garbage.

All the chocolate bars will be three years old by the time we open up and this is all tore apart.

Yep, Jesus Christ.

I don't know if we were to open again soon, we'd really need a lot of work to do, and I can't open with social distancing.

In this theater we could put about eight people.

Well there's 70 seats in here.

Great, so you know, well how am I gonna make any money on that?

You have to have PPE, you have to have reserve ticket systems, all that costs money, you can't open this place.

This is like Hiroshima.

I need a month at least to get cleaned up, at least a month, and the other problem is we have no staff.

Before COVID came along, we had a business and I had staff.

In the fall, there was no help taking down all the bamboo and stuff that has to be removed and all the [...] leaves that had to be done.

(dramatic music) There's no help with the cats or litter boxes or anything else.

Well he's got one eye out and the other one's cataracts, but when the pressure builds up, they have to remove it, so.

We now have huge number of branches that are dead in the trees that need to be cut off and removed before they fall on somebody.

This branch is down on the ground all over the place.

We have trees growing in the parking lot.

This all has to be cut back every spring, well now we're two years in and it's outta control.

So you know like there's just a whole lot of [...] that I don't have help with anymore that I have become the person who has to do it.

Yeah, and how does that work?

We're not open.

See what you guys have missed is we're not open, we're not open.

- [Customer On Phone} You're not open at all?

- Okay, get my drift here.

We open the first weekend in May.

We run weekends until the last week of June, we go seven days a week.

We run seven days a week until Labor Day, then we drop to weekend till Thanksgiving.

We're not open in those periods, they're giving money out for.

- [Caller] Thank you for your time.

- All right, you've given me the phone number, I'll give them a call and see what they say.

- [Caller] All right.

- All right, thank you, take care, bye, bye.

That was my local member of Parliament's office.

(laughing) It's costing me $75,000 a year, because the taxes still have to be paid, the hydro still has to be paid, the water bill still has to be paid, the mortgage still has to be paid and I still have to feed 42 cats and so on.

The gross in an average year is $400,000, this year we did 200 bucks, that pretty well sums it up.

We're closed and we can't reopen until it goes back to normal.

(whirring) (dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) Oh, well this is where we brought the drapes, after we treated them for the mold, but we still have some haze on them and I'm not sure, I think the haze is crystals from the vinegar, if not, if that's actually more mold, they're going to the dump.

Anyway, nothing in here was affected except the floor.

For the first time in 42 years, we didn't open up.

As spring comes and it starts to warm up, the outside air gets humid.

So as this building warmed up, humidity got in, get condensation, after the condensation you get dampness after dampness, you get mold, which I didn't think about at the time.

The book's molded, the labels are molded, the board's molded, so all that's gotta be tore apart, not really impressed.

It's running me in the hole $75,000 a year, and if we don't get it open, I'm gonna have to make a decision to sell everything off and get rid of it.

If it push comes to shove, the Edisons would have to go, the Lumiere would've to go, and the Western Electric stuff that's stored here, that's worth a lot of money, that would be the first to go.

(dramatic music) Over the years when we took out movie theaters, we took 450 movie theaters out.

There was film quite often left when the theater closed, been sitting around for years, so it all came back here.

I think it's more pertinent to pass it on as somebody that can make use of it and before it goes to the dump, which is where it would've wound up going had we not brought it here in the first place.

(dramatic music) I'm keeping four prints.

I have a print of The Time Machine and a print of Atlantis Lost Cotton, I'm keeping that and keeping The World's Greatest Athlete with Jan-Michael Vincent, and I think I'll probably keep Dracula.

(dramatic music) 30 years ago I did that painting.

It was real simple process.

You see, I didn't want it to look like Cineplex with plastic ceiling tile, had to have something different.

My hope was that the theater would continue on after I was here and the cats especially would be looked after, that's my bigger concern, and the problem we're looking at right now with the business in chaos and financial issues that nothing is certain anymore.

So it would be nice that there was some certainty there, that there was enough money to make sure that it was gonna be able to stay open and that it was gonna be viable, but we have to get rid of COVID.

We have to make it viable by having the right decisions made and this thing brought under control so that people are safe to go to the movies and things go back to the way they were.

(bird cawing) (dramatic music) (wind chimes clanging) I got a miserable cold, I feel like [...] with a broken ankle, I'm really thrilled with it.

Last Monday I took off my steel ice boots for some stupid reason, went outta the building and fell and broke my ankle and here I am, letting the dog in and out as my full-time occupation.

I thought you were just out.

You weren't?

(dog barking) Oh boy, why am I here?

(dramatic music) There's limits to how much I can do anymore.

So this all was a great idea, somewhere back 30 years ago, but didn't count on getting old and not being able to get up on the roof and climbing ladders and breaking ankles and everything else that can go wrong, so now it's becoming a big issue.

Nobody knows where anything goes.

The whole building is just a disaster.

Oh God, I hate this corner.

It's just an endless nightmare.

Yeah, one for each.

You getting the hotdog in a minute?

Just chill, here, here Dukie, take your bloody hotdog, thank you.

It is what it is.

I mean, if the theater crashed into absolute chaos, I'd be pretty bitter, but one day I'm not gonna be here, so it's gonna have to do it on its own anyway.

(dramatic music) (wind chimes clanging) (projector whirring) Somehow show must go on.

(water roaring) (birds chirping) (feet clomping) (letters scraping) (dramatic music) How did we get here?

It's like everything that could go wrong did.

There was a certain concern that I have to do something, either we have to sell it off or we have to open it or something, but we can't go on losing money for a third year.

I toyed with the idea of selling off the collection, selling off the adjacent lots and retiring, that was an option.

(dramatic music) The projectionists used to write messages.

This one says caution, plastic reels cause friction burns the other projectionist wrote on, well then don't stick your deck against the rail.

To restore stuff back took forever, we never did get everything done.

No, no, no, no, no, no, follow me.

This, now flip up like a tarp.

Flip up this way.

Okay, okay.

Caden, take that.

Do one more fold.

To me that's strong, does it not smell strong to you?

- No.

- No, it's knocking me out.

The parking lot was so overgrown, it took us two weeks to clear it, like I couldn't believe it.

(dramatic music) (saw whirring) Roy, this two here and that one over there need to come down, 'cause they're the ones that fall over anyway.

(dramatic music) (saw whirring) We have to put in air purifiers, it was a lot more expense.

We bought a thousand masks.

(dramatic music) (metal scraping) (water splashing) (vacuum whirring) (dramatic music) (dramatic music) A little higher.

By the way, we took the dead cats out, they're being buried as we speak.

(dramatic music) The question about reopening the theater was, will we recover the money we're putting in to get it open?

What will people do?

Will they come back?

Won't they come back?

I don't know.

We don't know if they want to sit in the theater with other people.

(dramatic music) (birds chirping) (beeping) I don't wanna open with everything in chaos and the Pepsi's coming on Tuesday, the order's coming Tuesday.

See, I got paperwork I gotta do tonight for the government, I got paperwork for them.

Oh my God, Murphy lives here.

Murphy's Law, everything that can go wrong, will go wrong and does go wrong, that's exactly how this place works.

My hope for Friday is that we get a reasonable number of people without any incidents and that things go well, in other words, we don't crash and burn.

(water babbling) (loon calling) (dramatic music) - Hey, welcome back to the after night show.

Great news in Kinmount, the Highland Cinema is reopening after a two year hiatus.

(dramatic music) They've got things together and they're reopening today, Friday, the May the sixth.

- Are you listening?

They're only to use the whirl that is marked use this row.

- If you didn't make it simple, that's your fault, everything gets mixed up.

- Now you need to make sure they have an ice bucket up here.

- [Roland] You said you're gonna have somebody come in and clean this candy bar.

- Well, yeah, but then Pepsi's been here, you've been here, the bathroom's never been mopped yet, and what's with all these [...] garbage pails - Playing tonight is Dr.

Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, and that's at 7:15 tonight.

- [Roland] Bathrooms are done.

- They're not, they need to be mopped.

- [Roland] they've been mopped.

- There's muddy footprints all over the floor.

- There is not, unless you went in there and did it just now.

if you did take the mop and fix it.

- Top Gun Maverick is on the list to come in there and that's a great new Tom Cruise movie.

(dramatic music) - Roll or do something, hold the damn thing in the air.

- [Roland] Jesus.

- Well it's the right guy on the wrong poster, well, we have nothing.

Pull it out, don't rip it.

- [...] off, you need help to get it in.

- We bought all the posters, but the one I need.

- {Roland] Dr.

Strange.

- Yeah, well it's strange that we can't find it.

- [Reporter] They also ask, they've got all new staff they've had to hire after two years, so be patient with the staff.

- You see there's a dust pan gone out the window, I don't know where it went, so I'm not gonna keep putting it back, I did it once, and once is all I'm doing.

- So congratulations to the Highland Cinema.

We got you back and we're in for a great summer in Kinmount, thanks guys.

- It's not doing what I remember.

The [...] movie is longer than six minutes.

I don't know what I'm doing, holy Jesus.

Now it's 3:15 and I'm still not going anywhere.

Okay, well you're gonna have to save me again.

First of all, I got the movie ingested.

It says it's there, it's green.

I got the key in, it says this goes, so I'm trying to build the [...] thing and it says it's six minutes.

Hang on, I see what's wrong, I see what's wrong, so I've missed a step here, oh my God.

You sure you don't wanna move to Kinmount and pet cats?

Save and click the arrow.

Oh God, it looks like it's there, (laughing) all right.

Oh my God, all right thanks, all right, bye.

Oh my God.

So let's try playback.

(dramatic music) (movie playing indistinctly) (dramatic music) (movie playing indistinctly) (dramatic music) (dramatic music) (indistinct chattering) - Six tickets.

- Six?

Thank you, okay perfect, thank you.

- [Child] Hi.

- Okay, thank you.

- I've been coming here ever since I was an infant.

The cat castle and just like all the antiques in the museum, it's just like, you know, just something that I really hold close to my heart.

- This is my first time here.

I've never seen anything like it in my life before.

I could be here all day and just look in all the cases.

(dramatic music) - To be able to see it generationally, to be able to bring your children, your grandchildren, it's really important, it's a tradition and it's really important to keep those alive.

(indistinct chattering) - It's really nice to see that it's open, and there's people here and I was actually worried that the parking lot would be full when we got here and there's a lot of cars out there, it's great to see.

- We lost the Lulu Theater in Halliburton, then we lost the Beaver Theater in Minden, and this is our last hope.

- I think it just has a nice feel about Keith, about it, you know, it's very similar to him.

Very interesting, eclectic, warm and friendly, and you just feel that when you come in here.

(dramatic music) - I don't know if I'm gonna live through this.

(laughing) Okay, yeah, well they forgot this.

They've been forgetting everything.

- [Customer] Don't worry about it.

- Yeah, you should have seen me with a projector today.

Four technician calls to figure out how to get it going again.

- [Customer] Oh see.

- (laughing) So at 75, I don't feel that bad.

- I think you're doing okay, thanks Keith.

- [Keith] Okay.

- He's special, Keith himself, because if you want to know anything, you take him with you and he tells you millions of stories.

- Keith is just a marvelous guy who's so committed to the community.

- The world needs more people like him that actually do what they believe in and create something like this to share with others, I think it's wonderful.

- I think he should get the order of Canada for this.

(dramatic music) - Okay.

I'd like to thank you all for coming.

Let's just hope the bloody projector doesn't blow up, it took me all day to figure out how to start it again.

(audience laughing and cheering) (dramatic music) - [Customer] Whether or not there'll be someone he could pass the baton to, we can only hope.

- Okay.

- The legacy would have to be passed onto someone who has the same passion.

(indistinct chattering) (audience clapping and cheering) (dramatic music) - Trailers usually are louder.

- [Interviewer] Happy though?

- So far I'm almost happy in the theater if I get through the night and nothing happens, that's the trick.

(dramatic music) Dust.

We painted this the summer of 2019, I guess and then of course we never got open again and I never got this case done.

This is the case for 2010 to 2020.

There's only so much space, so what do I deem relevant to go into the case?

It has to be something that every person specifically will remember.

You see the problem here?

Where am I supposed to start?

So I'm gonna put the COVID test in here.

The whole side of the case is gonna be COVID on the outside.

It impressed me to a great deal that all the people that came up to me and said, "We missed the place.

We're glad you're here.

We're glad you're back.

We're glad you opened up again."

So I kind of figured I must have done something right (laughing) that so many people had been affected by it, so that was a good thing, and that kind of justified the fact that I'd spent so much time and energy building it here in Kinmount in the middle of Boan nowhere.

I think that, the positive thing outta the pandemic was that people realized what they missed, (dramatic music) (car engine whirring) (dramatic music) that they'd have taken for granted, 'cause we tend to take all the stuff for granted.

If they want theaters to exist, they have to go to 'em.

Patronizing the theater keeps it open, well there's that old saying, use it or lose it.

If people feel there's something special about something, they should reward it by attending it.

We're like a microcosm of the theater world.

Whatever happens here also happens in the real world.

(laughing) Oh yeah, there we go.

Now the trick is it was full size and it worked, I could go check things out.

(laughing) The time machine was my most vivid memory because it was an escape, because there were lots of things in my childhood I didn't really like.

There were times I thought about why am I even here?

So the time machine that's connected to my youth and connected to my memories, so that makes it important because memories are important, and in the end that's all we have are the memories.

All times disconcerting, 'cause as you get older you realize there's certainly are limitations and then you worry about what you've done, if it'll continue, and what'll happen after you're gone.

I hope that the theater's gonna still be here, even if I'm not, and I hope that it continues on because otherwise it's been an awful lot of work if it doesn't.

At the end of the day it seemed to affect an awful lot of people, which was rewarding.

Time is an interesting thing, can you travel with it?

There are lots of other things I could do or could have done, but I think in the end I was happy with what I did.

(bright music) ♪ How many days has it been ♪ ♪ Since I was born ♪ ♪ How many days until I die ♪ ♪ Do I know any ways ♪ ♪ That I can make you laugh ♪ ♪ Or do I only know how to make you cry ♪ ♪ When the baby looks around him ♪ ♪ It's such a sight to see ♪ ♪ He shares a simple secret ♪ ♪ With the wise man ♪ ♪ He's a stranger in a strange land ♪ ♪ Just a stranger in a strange land ♪ ♪ Tell me why ♪ ♪ He's a stranger in a strange land ♪ ♪ Just a stranger in a strange land ♪ (bright music) ♪ How many miles will it take ♪ ♪ To see the sun ♪ ♪ And how many years until it's done ♪ ♪ Kiss my confusion away in the night ♪ ♪ Lay by my side when the morning comes ♪ ♪ And the baby looks around him ♪ ♪ And shares his bed of hay ♪ ♪ With the burrow in the palace of the king ♪ ♪ He's a stranger in a strange land ♪ ♪ Tell me why ♪ ♪ He's a stranger in a strange land ♪