HTLA Presents: Revival House: Part 4 - The Gardena Cinema's Fight to Stay Open

California Love

LAist Studios

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4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 21 March 2024

⏱️ 24 minutes

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Summary

As we continue our series "Revival House," How To LA producer Victoria Alejandro is taking us to the South Bay of LA. We're checking out the Gardena Cinema, which pivoted to revival screenings relatively recently.

The theater has been owned by the Kim family since 1976, and is now a non-profit run by Judy Kim and a team of 40 volunteers. Kim has saved the cinema from closures a handful of times now, and has also built up an incredible community of folks dedicated to keeping the cinema running.

Join us as we explore this theater's past and future.

Guests: Theater owner Judy Kim and volunteers Adela Tobon, Bill DeFrance, Cifen, and Conor Holt.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Julia Paskin.
0:01.6	Join me as I talk with NPR's Sarah McCammon
0:04.2	about her new book, The Ex-Vangelicals,
0:06.4	Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church.
0:09.4	That's April 25th at the Crawford, tickets at LAS.com
0:12.6	slash events.
0:14.3	Hi, I'm Victoria Alejandro, a producer on the L.A.
0:18.3	studio show How to LA.
0:20.8	For the past few weeks, I've been working on a series that's a love letter to vintage and independent cinemas here in Los Angeles.
0:27.0	I've been exploring how these movie theaters are staying afloat, their histories, and what they mean to their neighborhoods and communities.
0:33.4	Here's our fourth episode where we head down to LA South Bay and check out the family-owned
0:38.0	Gardina Cinema. Take a listen.
0:40.8	Hello LA, we're going back to the movies.
0:49.0	From LAA studios, this is How to LA. the show that helps you discover Los Angeles.
0:56.3	We're back with another episode of Revival House, our love letter to the vintage and
1:00.2	independent movie theaters around the city. Today we're heading to the
1:04.4	South Bay of LA and visiting the Gardina cinema. The single-screen movie
1:09.0	theater has been owned by the Kim family since 1976 and has always figured out ways to serve its community.
1:15.9	Whether that was showing Spanish language films in the 1980s or turning its parking lot into
1:20.9	a drive-in theater during the pandemic closures. The theater has
1:25.0	recently pivoted to showing repertory films, a mix of classics like Lala Land,
1:29.4	Invasion of the Body Snatchers and how to train your dragon.
	...

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