Coming soon: a theater near you.
Independent arthouse Partizanfilm opens its two-screen microcinema next week, bringing daily movies back to Burlington for the first time in 13 months. The theater opens with a members-only party on Wednesday, December 3, then invites the public to an open house the following evening. Classic films will screen both nights: Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 drama The Last Picture Show and the 1976 German feature Kings of the Road from Wim Wenders.
“It feels almost a little surreal that we’re at this point,” cofounder Antonio Golán said on Monday. “Finally? Already? I don’t know if it was a long time or a short time.”
“Finally and already,” cofounder Brett Yates said.
Shortly after Merrill’s Roxy Cinemas closed last November, Yates, Golán and three others formed a nonprofit cooperative and began planning. They found space next door to the shuttered Roxy, bought the commercial condominium at 230 College Street in May and, with the help of professionals and volunteers, began remodeling. The 2,000 square-foot unit had housed a yoga studio and the Restock Shop. It now houses two theaters — one with 19 seats, the other with 31 — that will show first-run independent and foreign films along with occasional repertory fare.
“It did seem, on some level, kind of crazy — the idea that this space could really be a movie theater,” Yates said. “But … I feel like it works.”
A cherry-red wall lined with movie posters sets the scene. The front room serves as the lobby as well as a café and used bookstore open to anyone who wants to stop in. Guests can linger at tables, on a couch or on stools lining the front window. Coffee, espresso, beer, wine, canned cocktails, kombucha and hot finger foods will be offered in addition to classic movie theater popcorn, sodas and candy.
Bringing the theater to fruition has been a grassroots effort. The founders are not business people, noted Yates, a freelance writer and ski lift operator. Golán is a public communications lecturer at the University of Vermont. The other founders are Yates’ wife, Michelle Sagalchik, a Burlington High School social studies teacher; Gretchen Schissel, a program specialist in UVM’s college of engineering and mathematical sciences; and physical therapist Ali Hamedani.
“Grassroots cooperative project” may suggest folding chairs and a portable projector — as opposed to a real cinema, Yates said. “It is both things. It is a grassroots, volunteer-led, community-driven effort. And it is also an actual movie theater.”
It features actual movie-theater seats — also cherry red — and Dolby digital surround sound.
Partizanfilm will operate much like a co-op grocery store. So far, it has 383 members. Their $60 annual dues give them a say in how the theater is run as well as a discount on theater tickets, which range from $7.50 to $12 for nonmembers.
Founders swept leaves off of the mat inside the front door on Monday, when the theater appeared ready to pop corn and sell tickets. Opening week films include Henry Fonda For President, a 2024 documentary from Austrian filmmaker Alexander Horwath; David Freyne’s 2025 romantic comedy Eternity and Angel’s Egg, a 1985 Japanese animated film that has been remastered and released in North America for the first time this month.
Soon to follow are: Hong Sang-soo’s By the Stream; La Grazia, directed and cowritten by Paolo Sorrentino; and Marty Supreme, the new dramedy starring Timothée Chalamet.
After months of hard work, the collective’s celluloid dreams have become reality. Sunday night, Yates took a break from testing projectors and sound equipment to sit in the theater with Sagalchik and watch an entire movie there for the first time.
