Reel Mondays is about to open the house doors to the public again, after a year's hiatus. The cinematic fundraiser for the Friends of the St. Albert Public Library was put on pause when its former home Grandin Theatres was demolished. After an exhaustive search of all other potential venues, the group has finally struck a deal with a theatre that's close to the library and has tons of seating and a proper projection screen.
Reel Mondays is about to open the house doors to the public again, after a year's hiatus. The cinematic fundraiser for the Friends of the St. Albert Public Library was put on pause when its former home Grandin Theatres was demolished.
After an exhaustive search of all other potential venues, the group has finally struck a deal with a theatre that's close to the library and has tons of seating and a proper projection screen.
“Really, the Arden is the only place in St. Albert where we could effectively show a movie,” explained Friends president Valerie Spink.
“We've looked at school halls. We've even looked at Forsyth Hall in the library but the ambiance is just not there. It just has a flat floor and barely holds 100 people.”
The film series started several years ago as a way of drawing out film fans from January to May to catch a string of monthly screenings of selected and critically acclaimed titles from the Toronto International Film Festival.
Now, Reel Mondays will have a Fall series of three screenings followed by a winter series of five screenings.
This leaves Spink and the Friends all thrilled as it will offer a lot more in terms of auditorium size and that theatre “ambiance” that just can't be found anywhere else in the city.
“We're going to have more seats. Previously, we used to sell out at about 165 seats at the Grandin. That's not letting people sit in the first couple of rows and then having all the broken seats where we had to put signs, etc. Now, we've got close to 500 seats. That's a big thing!”
Tickets for the Fall series just went on sale on Monday. Each movie costs $15 to attend, or people can buy tickets for the entire series at $35. Tickets are available from the customer service desk. Call the library at 780-459-1530 for more information.
The Fall series starts on Sept. 14 with historical art drama Mr. Turner, followed by Woman in Gold on Oct. 5 and Boychoir on Nov. 2. All movies will be shown at the Arden Theatre starting at 7 p.m.
Tickets for the last screening will include tickets for $8 each for those aged 10 to 17.
“We want people to see that it's a nice night out.”
All funds raised will go toward STARFest, the library's readers' festival that takes place in October.
