A spruced-up Jean Cocteau Cinema evolves after the pandemic

Aug. 16—The Jean Cocteau Cinema is becoming so much more than a cinema.

Over the course of pandemic closures, the cinema has evolved into a live-centric operation with a small stage now in front of the movie screen.

The name remains Jean Cocteau, but it's really something else these days.

"It's 'Jean Cocteau Cinema Presents,'" offered Al LaFleur, short for Alexandra. LaFleur has been the marketing director since May at Highgarden Entertainment, which includes author George R.R. Martin's Jean Cocteau Cinema and neighboring Beastly Books.

"Jean Cocteau Cinema+," suggested Evan Schultz, theater manager since October 2021.

"We're an event space," concluded Highgarden general manager Guillermo Tilley, who came on in March 2021, a week before the bookstore reopened after the COVID-19 closure.

Movie screenings fit into the schedule around events that now flood the calendar as one-offs, weekly or monthly appearances or occasionally.

Geeks Who Drink has dibs every Monday night. Sunday Get Down Drag Brunch, The Faculty Lounge Comedy Improv Live, All Fierce Comedy Show and Miercoles Musical have a chosen day once a month.

"We're evolving," LaFleur said. "We're moving where the wind takes us at this point."

So far, the wind is blowing in a direction set by a series of three Highgarden Hangouts public events in July and August 2021, where Tilley gauged the post-pandemic appetite of the public and filmmakers for where to go with the next-generation Jean Cocteau Cinema, which remained closed from March 2020 until October 2021.

"We definitely learned that live performances were the thing," Schultz said. "Live performances became a much bigger draw."

The Jean Cocteau team decided to make movies an event. Add something — a director speaking, dinner, cocktails.

"It became more and more apparent that people wanted stuff to do," Schultz said. "We are turning moviegoing into an experience. Giving people something to do rather than just sitting in a theater."

For the screening of the documentary Little Satchmo, they brought in a trumpeter to play Louis Armstrong songs before the show.

Caterers Andrea Abedi and Honey Yohalem are bringing back their Dinner & A Movie with When Harry Met Sally on Aug. 27. They started the concept at Jean Cocteau one year before the pandemic and got in seven movies before COVID-19 shut down the world.

"They were all sold out," Abedi said.

Abedi and Yohalem pick the movie. They went with When Harry Met Sally for the Katz's Delicatessen scene.

"We've eaten there, we've researched it, we love the movie," Abedi said. "We are reimagining the Katz's Deli."

They are offering corned beef, turkey breast on mini potato latkes, homemade pickles, and Abeles & Heymann-style coleslaw and potato salad.

"We want to bring some joy back into lives," Abedi said. "Before COVID, more than 80 percent that came to Dinner & A Movie dressed up."

Dinner & A Movie was a pre-pandemic favorite, Schultz said.

"We got a lot of feedback requesting it come back," he said. "We've come up with specialty cocktails as well."

The movie theater opened in 1976 as Collective Fantasy, became Jean Cocteau Cinema in 1983 and closed in 2006 until Game of Thrones author and Santa Fe resident George R.R. Martin revived the Jean Cocteau in 2013.

In all those years, the auditorium may well have stayed the same. After reopening in October 2021, the Jean Cocteau stayed open only until March, closing again for two months to remodel the auditorium.

"I'm pretty sure it was the original seats from 1976," Schultz said about the old auditorium. "It was very tightly packed. It was very uncomfortable."

The wide center aisle is gone. The old seats are gone. The old flooring is gone, as is the sound system and the old air conditioning system. The screen remains, as does the projector.

"It's still a 2K projector," Tilley said. "That's going to be our next project."

Seating dropped from 120 to 76 with wider seats, more leg space and more distinctly tiered rows. The rocker seats from Irwin Seating Co. have cupholders and padded, upholstered cushions. Two rows in the front have armchairs and love seats on rollers that can be easily rearranged or removed.

Purple is the color scheme for the seats and carpet, a personal selection by Martin, replacing what Tilley described as "a strange blue."

Tilley said the Highgarden Hangouts revealed that much of the community does not feel comfortable at downtown performance settings, but the Railyard and Jean Cocteau are considered neutral ground between downtown and the rest of Santa Fe. He discovered people would come to the Jean Cocteau — if the programming was right.

The Jean Cocteau is available for rental, too. Corporate events, birthday parties, weddings, all sorts of things have had the theater to themselves.

Another tent pole for the new era at Jean Cocteau is catering to the New Mexico film industry.

"We want to provide a place for a filmmaker who has no chance to screen a film in a theater," Tilley said. "Whether they want to show a film to family or an audience, we'll make it happen. Instead of having to go to L.A. or some distant place, they have a place to test a film."

Along with these test runs for new films, Jean Cocteau is finding a sweet spot with repertory films or cult classics — The Blob or The Princess Bride — and independent new releases willing to have a single showing.

"We are reinventing the moviegoing experience for 2022," LaFleur said.

But the renamed Santa Fe International Film Festival will be back at Jean Cocteau in October.