Trylon Cinema

Minneapolis's Oak Street Cinema, a volunteer-run repertory cinema, ran films seven days per week until cutbacks in programming had to be made for financial reasons. A collective of the Oak Street volunteers formed Take-Up Productions, which was established to promote showing films not typically screened in larger movie houses.[1] The organization began with outdoor screenings, starting with Watermelon Man, which was projected against a white brick wall behind a coffee shop, and then began to rent out theaters throughout the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area, including the Riverview, Heights, and Parkway.[2][3] Some screenings, such as that of Lawrence of Arabia and a series of Alfred Hitchcock films, drew hundreds of viewers.[1]

Trylon's original facade on Minnehaha Avenue

Barry Kryshka of Take-Up Productions, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, oversees and manages the Trylon.[2][4] The cinema sits in an old warehouse in the Longfellow neighborhood along Minnehaha Avenue that was rented, in 2009, at a rate of $800 a month.[2][5] Kryshka contracted Bright Star Systems, Inc. to retrofit the space with 50 old rocking seats purchased from a nearby cinema chain, a 20-foot (6.1 m) projection screen, two 35 mm movie projectors, and a minute concessions stand.[3] Trylon acquired its name from an eponymous theater in Kryshka's native Queens, New York, itself named for the Trylon sculpture at the 1939 New York World's Fair.[3] Founded as Trylon Microcinema, the movie house opened on the weekend of July 17–18, 2009, with a showing of Sherlock Jr. featuring live musical accompaniment from Dreamland Faces, a local accordion–musical saw duo.[3] Each of the venue's first 12 showings sold out.[2]

The Trylon closed for three months in summer 2017 as Kryshka supervised a major renovation and expansion of the theater, at a projected cost of $175,000.[4][6] MSR Design of Minneapolis worked pro bono to create updated architectural plans. As part of the renovation, the entrance was moved from Minnehaha Ave to 33rd Street. An outdoor courtyard was created outside the entrance, a new lobby and concession stand were built, and the space was updated to be more accessible to wheelchair users.[4] The auditorium was expanded from 50 to 92 seats, and a new screen and sound system were added. Relinquishing the Microcinema moniker, the movie house reopened as the Trylon Cinema over the weekend of September 22–24, 2017, with screenings of Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator.[6]

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Trylon closed from mid-March 2020 until July 3.[7] During the temporary closure, no employees were laid off and Krysha and the rest of the staff were able to install a new digital projector in the theater.[7] Trylon reopened at a reduced capacity of 20 seats with a screening of Attack the Block.[7]

Every three months, the Trylon Cinema publishes a full schedule of screenings, approximately 10 percent of which are of first run films.[3][8] The venue features a variety of regular exhibitions, ranging from the Trash Film Debauchery series of B movies, to the Defenders in which local cinephiles curate and defend screenings of personal favorite cult films, to Sound Unseen, a documentary project covering behind-the-scenes aspects of musicians' creative processes. The Trylon also hosts showcases of the films throughout various directors' careers.[9] Take-Up Productions continues to use other venues such as the Heights and the Riverview for screenings necessitating larger houses.[10] The Cinema is staffed almost entirely with volunteers.[2]

Critical reception for the Trylon has been positive. It was voted the best movie theater in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area in 2011, 2012 and 2018 by City Pages, which stated in 2018 that the cinema "offers film series and selections you won't find anywhere else in Minnesota. That includes kung fu hits, golden-era Hollywood movies, rare music documentaries, B-horror flicks, and, thanks to monthly sessions with Trash Film Debauchery, really weird films that time forgot".[9][10][11] In an unranked list of Minneapolis–Saint Paul's best cinemas written for WCCO, Eric Henderson called the Trylon the "pluckiest upstart in the Twin Cities" and described the experience of walking into the theater as "stepp[ing] onto the set of a Michel Gondry fantasy-noir about a scrappy theater thriving in the midst of a Prohibition-style ban on the moviegoing experience."[12] J. L. Sosa lauded the Trylon on Film School Rejects, praising the concessions selection, the physical intimacy of the space, and the cinema's programmers for their "impeccable taste in both high- and lowbrow culture."[8]

• Official website