Following the success of the Cine-Rama incubator art house theater, the Chattanooga Film Festival is announcing plans for a permanent theater called The Palace Picture House.
CFF opened the doors to Cine-Rama in May of 2016 at 100 W. Main St. as an incubator for an art house theater, in hopes to prove that Chattanooga could support and sustain indie, classic, genre films and documentaries year round outside of the festival. Chattanooga film fans come out to screenings en masse, effectively proving an arthouse was something the city could sustain, said officials. Now working with Lamp Post Properties, they’ve found a permanent location for The Palace Picture House. Details of the permanent location will be released early this spring, with plans to open this summer.
Until then, Lamp Post Properties is providing a temporary theater space in the Tomorrow Building to help keep the momentum going. In addition, CFF headquarters will be located within the Tomorrow Building long term.
The Palace Picture House also marks long time CFF/Cine-Rama collaborator and Chattanooga Girls Rock organizer Rose Cox coming on board the art house venture as a full partner.
The new theater will see Swine, the pop-up art gallery that was located within the space on Main St., come along as well and re-invent itself with the name Err Space. The gallery will aim to challenge conventional exhibition methods, allowing for experimentation and creating a safe space to fail (Err), grow, and for rethinking what art is and how it can be displayed.
It is CFF’s hope that with a permanent space, that partnerships with other organizations in the Chattanooga area, such as Chattanooga Girls Rock who held their first camp in Cine-Rama over the summer, will continue to grow and lead way to more than just film screenings, said officials.
CFF festival director Chris Dortch says, “The opening of the Palace feels like the next logical step in what has been a seven plus year journey to making Chattanooga a safer place for cinema. Since the very first days of MES film club this has been our dream and now we finally have the team in place to make it a permanent reality. I’d ask someone to pinch me but if this is all some magical hallucination I think I’d like to stay in the dream a bit longer.”