Nearly one hundred independent movie theaters across the country are set to host a screening of Michael Radford’s adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 as a protest against President Donald Trump. The Hollywood Reporter’s Patrick Shanley reports on the preparation for the April 4 event.
From the Hollywood Reporter:
On April 4, independent theaters across the country will screen 1984, the dystopian drama based on the bestselling 1949 novel by British author George Orwell.
Over 90 theaters have agreed to screen the film, a coordinated effort by the Art House Convergence and United State of Cinema organizations, which “encourages theaters to take a stand for our most basic values: freedom of speech, respect for our fellow human beings, and the simple truth that there are no such things as ‘alternative facts.'”
In Los Angeles, two theaters are slated to participate in the protest screening of the film: the Billy Wilder theater at the Hammer Museum, which is also home to UCLA’s Film & TV archive, and the Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theatre in West Hollywood.
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The screenings also come in the wake of the recently proposed budget from the Trump administration that would significantly cut funding to the National Endowment of the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities grants that fund much of what the UCLA archive does.
“Thematically, the event was structured around bringing an awareness to, specifically, the threat and challenges the Trump administration presents to NEA and NEH funding,” said Malcolm.
Read the full story at the Hollywood Reporter.