As of last week, Spoke Art is proud to announce our official partnership with San Francisco's acclaimed Castro Theatre. The Castro is a registered historic landmark, originally built in 1922, this is one of the country's last remaining true "movie palaces." Originally housing vaudeville acts, the Castro has been lovingly maintained since its creation (it's actually still owned by the same family who built it!) and features not just beautiful hand carved stone, frescoes and murals, but also a fully functional Mighty Wurlitzer organ which is played live before screenings. In other words, this ain't no cookie cutter franchise, but the real deal, a tribute to what movie going used to be, an experience.
We hope to honor the theatre's passion for quality independent, cult, classic and foreign films with top notch screen prints and giclees by our established roster of artists, as well as several new talents we've been following closely for the past several months. The best part? We get to chose what films we want to play with. No corporate sponsors, no big film companies, no great prints of crappy movies, just films we know and love and want to celebrate with like minded folks. We hope to make our prints as accessible as possible to the true fans who want to purchase and as many of you have come to know about Spoke, we will always bend over backwards to hook up our fellow EB members.
In addition to the three or four new prints a month that we'll be releasing, we are also aggressively pursuing a Lobby Card program for as many screenings as we can afford. The basic deal is that we will pay for, out of pocket, lobby cards to give away to the first 50 or attendees of every screening. These mini-prints will be limited edition and printed on the same paper stock to the same high standards of our regular prints and are our way to ensure that even our fans who can't afford a print at least can walk out of the theatre with a cool gift.
If you've never had the opportunity to visit the theatre (it's a must if you're ever in SF!) here's a look at the interior:
(photos nicked off Flickr, all property of their respective owners)
Well, that about sums it up! As we already have a vibrant thread here on the forum (http://forum.expressobeans.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=68524) for our monthly gallery shows, we'll be updating this thread with future screenings and prints, so feel to banter here! And yes, a lobby card give away is several days over due, stay tuned!
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get ready for this weekends Wong Kar Wai triple feature, very excited to see all three films on the big screen!
Ken.
This is awesome. Congrats and good luck!
