Visit SLFSathome.org  

April 29, 2020 

Dear Friends,

A month ago, I wrote to you about LOVE. I want to let you know it’s still happening. My last note described how we closed our beloved theaters and started up www.SLFSathome.org so you can enjoy independent film while we’re apart – and to provide us with a skeleton of income.

Through great stewardship of SLFS and tremendous community support, we anticipate that our brick-and-mortar closures are temporary. We’re all working and learning far beyond our normal capacity right now to figure out a tidal wave of new challenges.

We are grateful to Salt Lake County Zoo, Arts & Parks and program director Kirsten Darrington for their constant support and the Utah Department of Arts & Museums and director Victoria Panella Bourns who penned a wonderful appreciation of the arts in The Salt Lake Tribune.

Last Thursday I attended a Zoom arts boot camp with an NYC firm we love, Capacity Interactive. They provide marketing expertise to arts groups throughout New York City and around the nation, including a few indie film shops like SLFS. They called together an advisory group of the brightest and best people in the arts and invited thousands of arts administrators to be empathized with, mentored, and inspired. (Our mid-afternoon stretch break was led by a dancer from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; we had a musical interlude by a Tony Award winner.) This group showed so much love and radical hospitality to arts people from all over, including many small groups who can never hope to be clients of a firm like this. They ran the half-day session from their homes, for free, taught us infinitely helpful things, and posted the whole show for anyone to watch after the fact.

The Art House Convergence is hosting frequent learning sessions and brainstorming meetings for independent theater operators from all over. This professional development and support group was founded in part by two of my SLFS colleagues, Tori A. Baker and Amy Beth Aste, in 2006. In a session yesterday, someone said, “A fundamental reason we exist is to meet the emotional needs of our audience.” If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.

What I want to leave you with today is news that we’ve been given an amazing gift: a $200,000 challenge grant that can end up being $400,000. (Any amount you give will be matched by the AHE/CI Trust, up to $200K.) We’d like to thank the Trust for their love and ask those of you who love SLFS (and are able) to make a gift. The campaign is called Double the Love. The thought of being able to reopen strong – and relatively soon – is so exciting!

Thank you all.

Love,
Barb Guy
Director of public relations and marketing

You can click here for more pointers and detailed steps in the online viewing process at slfsathome.org.