The 5th Avenue Cinema is a two-screen, 35-millimeter projection theater at 510 Southwest Hall Street in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...

, in the United States, owned by

Portland State University Portland State University (PSU) is a public research university in Portland, Oregon. It was founded in 1946 as a post-secondary educational institution for World War II veterans. It evolved into a four-year college over the following two decad ...

(PSU) and operated by the student-managed PSU Film Committee. Each term the committee selects a variety of films, often

world cinema World cinema is a term in film theory that refers to films made outside of the American motion picture industry, particularly those in opposition to the aesthetics and values of commercial American cinema.Nagib, Lúcia. "Towards a positive de ...

art film An art film (or arthouse film) is typically an independent film, aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience. It is "intended to be a serious, artistic work, often experimental and not designed for mass appeal", "made primarily f ...

s, and screening is free to PSU students. The cinema is open to the public for a nominal fee.

History

The cinema opened in October 1970, under the name Cine-Mini Theater in rented space formerly used by the Portland State University Bookstore. Larry Moyer, owner of Moyer Theaters and rival brother of

Tom Moyer Thomas P. Moyer (March 2, 1919 – November 28, 2014) was an American movie theater chain magnate, real estate developer, and philanthropist from Oregon. Moyer was known for his lightweight boxing career, his career in entertainment, and for de ...

, believed that Portland was ready for an intimate, fully automated niche market movie house where the

projector A projector or image projector is an optical device that projects an image (or moving images) onto a surface, commonly a projection screen. Most projectors create an image by shining a light through a small transparent lens, but some newer types ...

, house music, curtains, and house lights were automatically controlled. The small theater was not a profitable first-run venue, however, and soon it began showing old movies and midnight movies, including the first public screening of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" in 1975. The name was changed to 5th Avenue Cinema in 1973, although the entrance remained on Southwest Hall Street. Almost from the beginning, the cinema worked with the PSU Film Committee to select programming that would appeal to students. An alliance with the Northwest Film Study Center followed, and the cinema even screened films during the annual

Portland International Film Festival PAM CUT–Center for an Untold Tomorrow, formerly the ''Northwest Film Center'' is a regional media arts resource and service organization based in Portland, Oregon, United States that was founded to encourage the study, appreciation, and utilizat ...

. When

Act III Cinemas Act III Theatres was an American company that owned movie theater multiplexes and screens principally located in the U.S. states of Texas, Oregon and Washington (U.S. state), Washington. The company was in business from 1986 to 1997, when it was ...

purchased Moyer Theaters in the late 1980s, Portland State University accepted ownership of the 5th Avenue Cinema as a non-profit organization. The cinema is one of the few student operated theaters in the United States.

References

External links

Downtown PortlandCinema Treasures
{{Theatres in Portland, Oregon 1970 establishments in Oregon Cinemas and movie theaters in Oregon Portland State University buildings Theatres completed in 1970 Theatres in Portland, Oregon