About two hours northeast of Toronto stands The Highlands Cinema, a hand made movie palace carved out of cedars and mosquitoes. Every summer for 40 years, families from neighbouring towns and villages in Ontario’s cottage country have braved bear cubs in the parking lot to see everything from “Barbie” to the latest “Despicable Me” flick.
It is entirely the vision of one of Kinmount, Ont.’s native sons, Keith Stata. “The Movie Man,” a documentary about this remarkable entrepreneur’s Don Quixote-like obsession with showing movies the way God intended — with an audience — is streaming now exclusively at Hollywood Suite.
On this shorter-than-usual summer episode, we hear from Stata as well as director and photographer Matt Finlin, plus one of the executive producers of the documentary, Barenaked Ladies’ frontman Ed Robertson.
Finlin, Robertson and others came for the movies but kept cominng back for the incredible museum of movie projectors, film stills, drive-in speakers and other artifacts Stata has collected and displays in hallways that snake around the cinemas.
The documentary started out as a short subject, but Finlin realized that there was more to the story. The COVID-19 pandemic crisis, which closed public spaces around the world, almost ended things at The Highlands. That Stata was able to persevere, clean up and carry on — and that audiences returned — is a big part of this story.
The doc, like this pdcast episode, is best enjoyed with popcorn. To listen, simply click on the white arrow in the blue dot above.
