Awaiting Garden City Cinema curtain-raising

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This article was published 11/04/2024 (538 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Action hasn’t yet been called on Winnipeg’s newest movie theatre, but anticipation is growing.

A lone print-out pasted against dark windows advertises “We are hiring!” at Garden City Cinema.

The theatre ran movies for 40 years in Garden City Shopping Centre before it closed in August 2010.

New owners had planned to reopen the doors in March, according to the advertisement, but those plans have stalled.

“I think, generally, it’ll be good for business,” said Terrance Fitzner, a waiter at nearby Smitty’s restaurant.

He’s ready to serve moviegoers leaving or entering the reopened theatre. However, Fitzner was unsure whether he’ll be a customer — subtitles might need to be added, he joked.

The City of Winnipeg approved permits in 2022 for Albion Cinemas, operating as Garden City Cinema, to become a new tenant of the single-level mall.

Albion Cinemas emphasizes Bollywood movies, its website shows. Neither it nor Garden City Cinema responded to interview requests by print deadline Wednesday.

Fitzner often banters with Sikh and Filipino diners. Having a multicultural theatre in the area would be appropriate, he noted.

“Canada is and always has been a country of immigrants. I think it’s very nice to give all the peoples of the country places where they can get in touch with their culture,” Fitzner said.

Paz Aquino hopes Filipino-led movies will also be shown. She visits Cinema City Northgate — less than two kilometres away — to view films in Tagalog, but she’s at Garden City Shopping Centre daily.

“It’s about time,” commented Terry Laurancino, Aquino’s friend, of the theatre’s apparent arrival.

Laurancino’s daughter worked at the former Garden City Cinema. At the time, Cineplex ran the two-screen complex.

It was the smallest first-run cinema in the area by the time it closed in 2010.

While other sites had moved to stadium seating, it kept its old-style sloped floors.

The theatre played movies from India and the Philippines, alongside Hollywood films, during its final years.

Cineplex didn’t renew its lease because it didn’t mesh with the company’s more modern facilities, a spokesman told the Free Press at the time.

The City of Winnipeg’s 2022 permit allowed for new bleacher seating, access ramps and the demolition and installation of walls and stairs, among other items.

A year later, in September 2023, Winnipeg green-lit a new permit for renovations in the kitchen and washrooms.

Brenda Austin-Smith, a University of Manitoba professor of film and media, considers a multicultural movie theatre in Garden City a smart business move.

New cinema owners are focusing on niche marketing, Austin-Smith added.

“They’ve realized that the mass market is too fragmented. The best thing to do is to figure out, ‘What is the most underserved audience in the local area?’” she said.

Almost 17 per cent of Garden City’s 6,475 residents spoke Tagalog in 2021, according to the latest Canadian census. Three per cent of the population spoke Punjabi.

Operating cinemas is a “kind of precarious” venture in today’s society of movie-streamers, Austin-Smith said. However, Bollywood and Nollywood films — movie hubs based in India and Nigeria, respectively — are thriving, she added.

Cinemas started niche, became mass marketed and are seemingly returning to niche again, Austin-Smith said.

Companies often need big blockbusters such as Dune or specialty movies like Bollywood films to draw crowds, she said.

It’s unclear when Garden City Cinema will begin showing movies.

McCor Management, which manages Garden City Shopping Centre, declined to comment.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com