15 Moviegoing Questions With Kiva Reardon, Producer
"[Movie theaters should] offer free childcare like at an IKEA or YMCA."
Name: Kiva Reardon
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Occupation: Producer, writer, curator
Links: Kiva’s Substack
Join Sundance Collab Film Club, hosted by Kiva (and is free!)
Each month, the Film Club event series highlights one groundbreaking film from the Sundance Film Festival 101 Watchlist. Join writer, producer, and programmer Kiva Reardon (Sorry, Baby), our host, for a free, live online discussion as she guides us through each film's narrative architecture, visual style, and themes. Expect a dynamic mix of scene breakdowns, deep-dive analysis, and an interactive Q&A where you can ask questions.
1. What’s your favorite day & time to go to the movies?
A weekday matinee still feels like I’m getting away with something.
2. What’s your favorite movie theater?
Right before the pandemic, I was on a festival jury in Mexico City. All the screenings happened at the Cineteca Nacional. I love how the campus feels like a park surrounded by cinema. The architecture, which is stunning, fuses the largely very indoor activity of movie-watching with the city. There’s coffee shops, bars; it feels like a mini movie city.
In Los Angeles, I will forever love the Ted Mann Theater. When I moved here, I was Associate Director of Film Programs at the Academy Museum, which meant I spent countless hours in that space before and after its (meticulous) construction. And what other theatre is such a perfect shade of green? When I interviewed Jane Campion and the cast of The Power of the Dog, I wore a green suit to match the cinema.
Special mention to the Scotiabank in Toronto because it was the asylum that raised my cohort of TIFF programmers (2015-2020). You know who you are. I’d walk up the Scotiabank’s broken escalator a hundred times and in any lifetime to cover an intro for you.
3. What’s your go-to movie theater snack & drink combo?
Buttered popcorn, Reese’s Pieces, large soda water or Diet Coke.
4. What’s your dream movie theater snack & drink combo (if noise and sound weren’t an issue)?
I believe that constriction can be a great conduit for creativity, meaning: whatever you sneak in will always taste better than anything sanctioned by concessions.
5. First movie you remember seeing in a theater?
Fantasia, I don’t know exactly how old I was but I was terrified and asked to leave.
6. Last movie you saw in a theater?
The Odyssey at the AMC Americana.
7. Is there a movie you wish you could have seen in a theater?
I feel like I missed out on seeing two classics of my time for the first time in theatres: Jurassic Park and Spice World.
8. Have you ever seen a movie more than once in theaters?
Titanic. Three times when it was first in theatres and once again during its 3D re-release in 2012. Any chance I get, I re-watch Agnès Varda’s Cléo de 5 à 7 with an audience, and am always happy to see any Varda movie in a theatre again. I ended up seeing Visages Villages more than once during its run.
9. Do you stay through the credits or leave as soon as the film ends?
There is something very humbling about seeing all the names of the people who contributed to taking an idea that existed only in someone’s mind’s eye and who then forced it — by sheer will and delusion, often at great cost to their mental, emotional and financial health — into material existence in our earthly plane. But sometimes I also just really need to pee.
10. What’s one thing you would change to make movie theaters better?
Offering free childcare like at an IKEA or YMCA. This came up after I interviewed the founders of Cinecamp, who provide subsidized childcare at film festivals. But why not make it an AMC A-Lister bonus? The cost of seeing a movie is already high and when you factor in childcare that can be a dealbreaker. This scheme would get parents and caregivers into seats and indoctrinate (positive) the next generation into loving going to the movies by associating it with playtime. (The font of the cinema crèches could be styled after Jacques Tati’s Playtime!) A long con investment for theatre chains.
11. Tell me about an especially memorable moviegoing experience that stands out in your mind.
I nearly threw up at a screening of Titane at Beyond Fest, but was doing a Q&A with Julie Ducournau the next day. I had to just ride it out so that I didn’t miss essential parts of the film.
12. What’s a movie you’re looking forward to seeing?
Ben’imana dir. Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo.
13. What’s your dream combination of director and lead(s)?
Mati Diop x Jon Bernthal.
14. If you could live in a movie, which one would it be?
I don’t think I would… Movies, as objects that live outside of me, give me insights into why I’m yearning for something, and help me understand and critique the world I live in. I wouldn’t want to lose that.
15. Why do you think people should continue seeing movies at the movie theater?
Because it’s still a place where we’re forced to be together! That sometimes is annoying, because humans have a tendency to be aggravating, but navigating those frictions is essential to living.
The flip side is also always worth it: other people can change your mind and expand your experience. Hearing someone else laugh, scream, or cry informs how you take in a film, and that just can’t happen the same way at home. We need each other!
Kiva is the best!!
legend!!!!!!