It may have not gotten its entire ask, but financially struggling Sudbury Indie Cinema says the $60,000 bridging grant it received from the Greater Sudbury Development Corporation earlier this month gives the organization some breathing room.
The local film co-op had asked for $200,000 over three years — $60,000 for the first year, $80,000 for the second and $60,000 for the third.
“So we only got the first year, but it’s the full $60K that we had requested,” said Sudbury Independent Cinema Co-op board chair Ian Carlyle.
He said this result, which he nonetheless calls “very positive,” was something the group had planned for, as they knew this was likely going to be the decision.
“We’re happy with the decision,” Carlyle said. “It's good to have that financial backing from the municipal body like the Greater Sudbury Development Corporation.
Asked how long the funding will allow the film co-op to remain open, Carlyle said he can’t really answer that, but it’s enough to meet cash flow requirements for the next couple of months.
“But there's still plenty of work that needs to be done as we head into 2024,” he said.
Without the funding, Sudbury Indie Cinema was “very likely facing a scenario” that “the doors would have been closed by the new year,” Carlyle said.
The GDSC support “allows us to keep the doors open and the lights on” and gives the film co-op some “breathing room” as it rolls up its sleeves and focuses on fundraising, bringing in audiences and applying for other government grants, he said.
“So while it is a positive sign, it’s not a panacea to our ailments,” Carlyle said.
Last month, the local film co-op revealed it was struggling to keep up with its bills, between chronic underfunding of the arts sector, rising costs and the impact of COVID-19.
Beth Mairs, lead programmer and former executive director of Sudbury Independent Cinema Co-op, said it was “sort of like a perfect storm.”
While impacted by COVID-19 closures and audiences that were slow to return in the years following the pandemic, Sudbury Indie Cinema has actually been “smashing it” so far in 2023.
But fixed costs are up in some cases by 30 per cent, and pandemic government supports have dried up at this point.
While Sudbury Indie Cinema does receive yearly arts and culture grants from the City of Greater Sudbury, Mairs said the amount they receive is small compared to other groups that receive operational funding.
In a November column for Sudbury.com, Mairs explains how the city’s arts funding works, and points out the amount in that envelope has been unchanged since 2016 and ignores the impact COVID-19 had on local arts organizations.
One way the city funds arts organizations is through operative funding. Groups can apply to receive a significant amount of funding in order to keep the doors open and the lights on. But as Mairs pointed out, the arts funding envelope has been unchanged for almost eight years, so each time a new organization is granted operative funding, less funding is available for other artists and groups, which leaves groups like the Indie competing for the limited amount of leftover funding.
The Art Gallery of Sudbury, for example, has its own funding line in the city budget, representing 23 per cent of its operating expenses, she said.
City support for the cinema previously covered about five per cent of its costs. She said there are some organizations in the city that don’t have a brick-and-mortar location they’re trying to keep open who receive more.
If you’d like to take in some Sudbury Indie Cinema programming, there’s a few events coming up over the holidays.
The 2002 holiday favourite “About a Boy” screens tonight (Wednesday, Dec. 20) at 7 p.m., while the family 1991 classic “Hook” screens Saturday, Dec. 30 at 7:30 p.m.
For more information, check out Sudbury Indie Cinema’s website.
Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s assistant editor. She also covers education and the arts scene.
