Please join the CACC on its 20th anniversary fundraising drive!

To quote the immortal words of one Robert Clark Seger,
“20 years… where’d they go?”

Yes, friends, The Cape Ann Community Cinema, now celebrating 2 years here in Rockport, is coming up on 20 years serving the needs of Boston’s North Shore film fans (with me personally being in the movie biz for 40 years now, holy schnikes!).

During those 20 years, our wee humble movie loft has:

• Shown over 2,000 films
• Hosted dozens of Oscar, Emmy, and Grammy nominees and winners
• Hosted hundreds of birthdays, showers, b-mitzvahs, memorials, and even weddings
• Sold over 250,000 tickets
• Resurrected the American video store

We have sure done a lot, but we want to do more, and would love your help in doing it.

What are our business-essential plans now that we’re two years back from our crippling Covid closure?

1) ADD A 4TH SCREEN
We pass up a lot of available programming simply because we don’t have enough screens. We have already started work modifying The Vincent Price Gallery, which we are merging with The Vincent Price Screening Room, and need to pull it all together with some electrical work, light construction, and carpet patching and rename it “The Café ‘80s,” a Back To The Future-inspired 10-seat screening room, like The Darth Vader Suite, only with a lot more Day-Glo colors. It will not only be our first 4K screen, but our first room with… cupholders!

2) UPGRADE THE OTHER 3 SCREENS TO 4K
More of our films are available in 4K, and watching your favorite movie in 4K when you rent a Cinema – or are gifted a Cinema rental for a kind donation – is super awesome. To paraphrase Mr. Braddock (William Daniels) from The Graduate, “Pixels!”

3) LAND MORE PROGRAMMING
When Covid hit, we had open balances with a number of our independent film distributors. We were closed for over three years with no appreciable cash flow, but since reopening in 2023, have paid most of them off. A handful remain with open balances, which we’d like to satisfy as we come into Awards Season. We would also like to offer up reasonable deposits to distributors we haven’t worked with before.

4) ADA COMPLIANCE
This is a two-fold ask. First, we were able to reopen in 2023 in the first place thanks to the kindness of an Angel Patron who provided funding for the construction of our mandatory ADA-compliant restroom (the one that adjoins The Darth Vader Suite). The help came in the form of a no-interest, payback-whenever loan, which we’d like to pay back in full in the coming year. Additionally, we need to add assistive listening devices to all four screens. While our daily open-caption screenings satisfy some of the patron need, these Bluetooth- and hearing aid-compatible headphones would satisfy all of the legal need. We’d also like to pay back the generous painter who fronted his time and the supplies that give CACC its distinctive palette.

5) AC FOR THE DEATH STAR
We discovered this past summer that The Darth Vader Suite’s temperature reaches uncomfortable heights in July and August (something to do with the SuperLaser), as it came without working AC. We found a contractor whose quote – for a mini split system that will also heat the space more efficiently than our current system – did not make us respond with our best Eddie Murphy-as-Axel Foley, “Get the #$@% outta here!” He can do the job in the spring and have us chillin’ by Memorial Day if we need it.

6) A BITCHIN’ KITCHEN
We would like to not only offer front-end light meals and snacks, but a small catering kitchen to service the many events that we host. We’d need some warmers, small ovens, assorted kitchen devices, plus a three-basin wash sink for this need.

And we already have our first monetary gift, an anonymous Angel Donor who stepped up with an incredible $8,000 donation!

Will you please consider a year-end (or year-beginning) donation to CACC to help keep us cool-running? A tax deduction is available if you require one (for all help except straight purchase of discount passes), and all of it goes to a great cause (see the line-item breakdown below).

Thank you for your consideration, and let’s together “Fortify The Future”!

Warmest regards (and kindest thanks),