Updated – New Downtown Santa Ana arthouse theater having trouble raising funds

Updated on 7/11/13– so far the Kickstart fundraising effort, as of Thursday, July 11, 2013, for the proposed Frida Cinema has only raised $4,305, despite a massive marketing effort on the Facebook pages of those associated with Downtown Inc and the Artists Village.  With 18 days to go these folks are not much closer to raising the $65k they say they need in order to open for business.

Frida Cinema, the new arthouse theater that has displaced the Fiesta Teatro in Downtown Santa Ana has thirty days to raise $65,000, to buy a new digital projector, according to their Kickstart page.  So far they have only raised $1,810.  These same owners currently operate the Long Beach Cinematheque.

It remains to be seen if an arthouse theater in Downtown Santa Ana will survive.  There is an established arthouse theater in south Santa Ana – the Regency.

Here are a few notes from their Kickstart page:

We’re already working with educational organizations, film societies, event and art curators, and community leaders in exploring programming and series ideas, and welcome anyone to reach out and share their ideas and vision for a community arthouse with us.   Our aim is to be experimental, creative, and free with our programming, and we are so extremely excited about the flexibility that having two auditoriums will provide.

In order to make this vision come true, we are reaching out to our fellow lovers of film, art, and community in our effort to obtain a digital projector for The Frida.  The theatre currently houses two 35mm projectors, and don’t worry – we’ll be keeping both of them, and using them to screen films on classic 35mm as often as we can!  But as our mission is to screen student, independent, festival, foreign, documentary, and other such films that are often only available digitally, a digital projector is integral to that vision.

We have lined up an assortment of goodies for our Kickstarter supporters, all of which are tailored for people who love cinema as much as we do (and popcorn and soda lovers, too!).  Please watch our video, learn a little about our history and our mission, and support our cause!