The Cinema Center: Fostering community and conversation through film for 50 years

If you ask Executive Director Art Herbig, the Cinema Center is much more than a movie theater.

“Cinema Center is a group of people, a community, who gather around the art of film,” he says. “We’re here to be a service to the people of Fort Wayne and to provide them with experiences that otherwise they wouldn’t get.”

2026 marks 50 years of the Cinema Center. They’ve set a goal of raising $100,000 this year to repair and upgrade the theater. Three summers ago, a harsh windstorm ransacked the theater’s marquee. Their over-10-year-old sound system is on the decline. Repairs like this cost tens of thousands of dollars – a pretty penny for an arthouse theater functioning on a tight nonprofit’s budget. They’re reliant on the community returning the love and care the theater has pushed out.

“I think everything we do here in terms of upgrades is to invest in something that will outlast the crew that is here,” Herbig says. “One of the things we can do in this moment is celebrate being 50 years old and reach out to the community and say, ‘Hey, we’re looking to take things around our building and inside our theater and make the experience better for you, so that the next 50 years are just as good as the first 50.'”

The Cinema Center was founded in 1976 when a group of film enthusiasts scrambled to fill the void when Fort Wayne’s last art movie house, The Spectator Theater, lost its lease. 

For 15 years, the organization floated from the Allen County Public Library, the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House, and anywhere else that would host them. Finally, in 1991, the Cinema Center was able to firmly establish itself in the Hall Community Arts Center at 437 E. Berry St., thanks to the support of Arts Uniter, the Foellinger Foundation, the Lincoln Foundation, and others. 

Over the years, movie rentals and then streaming services rose in popularity. The Cinema Center has heard warnings over and over again about the risk of movie theaters dying out. But according to Herbig, the same spirit that brought those enthusiasts to form the center in 1976 will keep it alive for years to come.

“It’s entirely possible that the movie theaters will go the way of the dodo, but we wonder because there has to be a place that maintains this type of experience for the community,” he says.

Cinema Center is an arthouse cinema, dedicated to sharing films that normally wouldn’t hit the local big screen. This can range from foreign films to films from small film companies to films deemed too controversial or off-the-wall to be shown at mainstream theaters. 

Some of their recent showings include “Black Panther a.k.a Off the Pig,” a film that includes real footage of the aftermath of a police assault against the Black Panther Los Angeles Chapter headquarters in 1967; “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” a 2025 movie about primary schools in Russia being turned into recruitment stages for the war after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; and “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” a movie based on real life events about a child trapped in a car under Israel fire in the Gaza Strip including real archival audio of the distress call. Herbig says the goal of hosting films like this is to spark conversation. 

“We joke that if somebody walks out of one of our films talking about anything other than one of our films, that we programmed the wrong film,” Herbig says. “The fact is, we want people to come here and be able to connect and talk about our stories and be impacted and develop empathy.”

When the center does host more mainstream productions, they always aim to pair it with a cause and a conversation. One nonprofit they’ve worked with on multiple occasions is the YWCA. When “Barbie” took the world by storm in 2023, the Cinema Center used its screenings to collect dolls for the YWCA and ended up receiving over 300 to be donated to children in need. The movie also fit well into the overall mission of creating conversation and community. 

“Barbie was a controversial movie, and it was polarizing. We like to say that when a movie is polarizing, we want it here,” Herbig says. “Here, the movie isn’t the end of the conversation, it’s the start.”

More recently, the theater was flooded with requests from members to screen “Iron Lung” and searched for a way to make it more than just a movie. Since the film was marketed as using the most fake blood in film history, they partnered with the Red Cross and ended up collecting over 40 blood donations.

“It was a wonderful opportunity to take this weirdly niche film and turn it into something that was good for the community,” Herbig says. 

One of the best ways the community can support the Cinema Center through this is by becoming a member. According to their website, roughly half of ticket revenue ends up being paid to film distributors in licensing fees, so 40% of the theater’s budget comes from contributed income by the community. A Cinema Center membership is more than discounted tickets, explains Herbig; it’s a way to have a voice and a role in keeping local cinema alive. 

“We’re pulling in like 10 different directions to try to get people to be members and understand the value of membership to Cinema Center,” Herbig says. “Because the more we do that, the more we can grow our community, the more we can, you know, create great programming. There was a time when Cinema Center was open seven days a week. Now we’re open Thursday through Sunday. The only difference between being open seven days a week and Thursday through Sunday is having more members.”

More than anything, the Cinema Center’s staff wants to use this anniversary as an opportunity to celebrate the Fort Wayne film community and share with the rest of the city that they are more than just a theater; they are an experience. 

“One of the things that we struggle with is the reputation of the movie theater in downtown,” says Herbig. “And we strive to be so much more than that, and we would like people to know that.”