Before a weeknight showing of the obscure 1995 Todd Haynes film, Safe, Hyperreal Film Club cofounder Jenni Kaye invites a round of applause for the volunteers running the 60-seat screening space in East Austin. After almost a decade of hosting movie parties around the capital city, Kaye’s cinema pop-up opened a permanent clubhouse on Chicon Street last September. A rotating cast of some 40 cinephiles help pop popcorn and host four features each week, often paired with locally made short films.
“It’s almost 100% volunteer run, and that’s critical to the type of experience we want to create,” says David McMichael, who founded the group with Kaye and Tanner Hadfield. “It’s less a business and more like a giant community art project.”
The nonprofit’s new headquarters arrives at a fruitful moment for low-budget independent theaters—sometimes called microcinemas—in Texas. For instance, Austinites can now catch throwback repertory showings at Eastside Cinema and We Luv Video. In the changing landscape of mainstream theaters, these spaces offer mind-opening curation, and, above all, a passionate communal viewing experience.
Along with more than $66,000 initially raised through Kickstarter, Hyperreal funds the clubhouse via monthly subscribers who receive special perks, as well as sliding-scale box office sales. McMichael says this model keeps ticket prices low and the energy more offbeat. Case in point, he was duct-taped to a chair and carried onstage to introduce the femme fatale revenge plot of Park Chan-wook’s Lady Vengeance.
“We’re in this audience expansion moment,” McMichael says. “That’s how we get people to come back, just by doing these high-concept but lowbrow things.” hyperrealfilm.club
