Avalon Park Film House
Movies in Our Neighborhood
It Started With a Loss
I moved to the South Side a few years ago and fell in love with it — the neighbors, the history, the feeling of a community that has deep roots. One of my favorite things was the movie theater on 87th Street. It had been remodeled, had a bar, showed Hollywood films and independent cinema, and at one point ran buy-one-get-one-free tickets. It was exactly the kind of place a neighborhood deserves. Then it closed.
And with it went something harder to name — a place where you could show up, sit in the dark next to your neighbors, and share something together for two hours. A place that said: your stories matter here. Your leisure matters here. You matter here.
When it closed, I felt that absence personally. And the more I talked to people in Avalon Park and Chatham, the more I realized I wasn't alone.
Cinema Chatham in Chicago's South Side permanently closed on January 31, 2024
If you live in Avalon Park or Chatham and you want to see a film, visit an art gallery, or catch a live performance, you're getting in a car or on a bus and leaving your neighborhood. That's not a small thing. That's a message — even if no one intended it — that culture lives somewhere else. For someone else.
I don't accept that.
Theaters, galleries, and performance spaces aren't luxuries. They're civic infrastructure. They're the places where we gather not just to be entertained but to be in conversation — with each other, with ideas, with our own community's stories. Unlike the gym or the grocery store, these are places where you linger. Where you turn to the stranger next to you and say did you see that? That's how neighbors become neighbors.
The Reality Right Now
What I’m Building
The Avalon Park Film House is a community cinema project rooted in the South Side. It started during my six-month fellowship with the Change Collective, where I had the space and support to turn this idea into an actual plan.
The first chapter is pop-up film screenings — starting in Avalon Park, in spaces that already belong to the community: park districts, churches, storefronts that deserve new life. The focus will be on local filmmakers first. People who live here, make work here, and whose stories deserve to be seen right here in the neighborhood they came from.
I've already started reaching out — to filmmakers across the South Side, and to the Avalon Park Park District to explore what's possible for a venue. The pieces are beginning to move.
The longer dream? A permanent Avalon Park Movie House. A real, recurring, rooted cultural space on the South Side. That's not this year — but it's what this is all working toward.
The Avalon Park Film House project aims to fill this cultural void and prove that art absolutely belongs here.
Project Goals
Where We’re Going
In the short term:
Host at least three pop-up screenings in the first year, attracting 25+ neighbors per event, partnering with local filmmakers and local businesses, and launching a small critique group where South Side creatives can support each other's work.
In the long term:
Build a sustainable programming calendar. Attract funding, sponsorships, and city support. Create enough of a cultural footprint that the South Side can't be talked about without talking about what's happening in Avalon Park. And eventually — bring a movie theater back.
Spread the Word
Right now the most important thing is simple: if this resonates with you, tell someone. Tell a neighbor, a filmmaker friend, a business owner, anyone who loves the South Side and believes culture belongs here too.
If you're already doing this kind of work — in film, in community organizing, in arts programming — I want to connect. I'm building this with as many people as possible, and I know there's a lot I haven't figured out yet. That's okay. That's the point of starting.
Because every neighborhood deserves its own cultural gathering place