[UPDATED] You Can Still Go to Laemmle, Virtually

Laemmle Glendale (Photo – laemmle.com).

One of our favorite local business — the Laemmle movie theater, which brings us independent voices from around the world all year long, has posted that they’re still bringing you unique, entertaining and important voices amidst the pandemic.

By News Desk

Read on to see how you can see selected movies right now, even if you have to fix your own popcorn.

As an exhibitor, I’m supposed to hate VOD (video on demand), seeing it as an enemy out to destroy my family’s 80+ year old business. However, I believe that people will always love going to the movie theatre, and that they recognize movie-going as the best way to appreciate what the filmmaker has created.

But right now, going to the movie theatre isn’t an option. We all know why this is the case, and we’re just going to have to accept it until we can get through this crisis.

These unprecedented times call for new alliances. So in partnership with a number of our indie distributors, we are launching the “Laemmle Virtual Cinema” program.

While the theatres are closed, we’ll be emailing to let you know about new films which you can watch on VOD. The distributors will be sharing revenue directly with us, so that we have the resources to get through this mandatory closure, and can reopen our actual doors as soon as the coast is clear.

So please go ahead and pay to watch a movie online. You’re not cheating on us. You’ll actually be helping us. And together, we can keep the fires of arthouse cinema burning until this storm has passed.

All the best,

Greg Laemmle

Here’s a link that was just released with FAQs about Laemmle’s VOD. Below are the available movies (for now):

Movie: Once Were Brothers

Movie: The Whistlers

Movie: Pause

Movie: Corpus Christi

Movie: Fantastic Fungi

Movie: Phoenix, Oregon

Movie: Bacurau

[This article has been updated to add links to offered movies, March 26, 10:47 pm.]