Want to rent your own movie screening? Alamo Theatre carries on despite federal cuts

By John Epstein

If it’s a Sunday afternoon, there’s a good chance Orland couple Caroline Chester and John McDonald can be found nestled into the seats of Bucksport’s Alamo Theatre to catch a movie.

“It’s small and intimate and it just feels sweet,” Chester said. Her husband agreed.

“I like their film selections, the old timey lobby, the original movie posters, and the comfortable seating,” McDonald said.

Indeed, the Alamo has developed a loyal following for its weekend movie screenings. It’s also a bargain, with tickets between $6 and $10.

Constructed in 1916, it’s one of the oldest cinema spaces in the country.  Revived as a cinema in 1999, it has become a vital part of the mission of the not-for-profit Northeast Historic Film (NHF), whose goal is to “collect, preserve and share moving images of interest to the people of northern New England.”

The genesis of Northeast Historic Film

David Weis, NHF’s executive director, produced industrial films and video in Boston in the 1970’s, and summered in Blue Hill with his then wife, Karan Sheldon. Later, deciding to live year-round in Blue Hill, they worked on a special project in 1985 for the University of Maine, a film called From Stump to Ship: a 1930 Logging Film.  It was originally made for one of Maine’s great lumber barons, Alfred Ames. The movie showed how the lumber industry worked in the early 20th century before modern equipment and clear-cutting. 

“The film didn’t have sound,” Weiss said, “Ames was an expert on all the tools and techniques for lumbering, like log-rolling on the river and he would show the movie around the state and provide live narration himself,” he said. 

With a $9,500 grant from the Maine Humanities Council, Weiss and Sheldon were able to have the Maine humorist, Tim Sample, add a voice over to the Ames’ movie.

“We were then supposed to show the film seven times around the state,” Weiss said. Their first venue was at Hauck Auditorium in Orono.

“We drew 1,100 people, then 600 in Farmington, 800 in Machias, and on and on,” he said. “People were coming out of the woods to see the film. I was blown away. We wanted to do more.” 

Inspired to create a regional film archive, in 1986 Weiss and Sheldon created Northeast Historical Film (NHF).  They continued applying for more grants which enabled them to travel throughout Maine gathering film from town, school and university libraries and television stations, as well as private collections of home movies.  

“Often people didn’t know what they had,” said Weiss.  “They’d point to a dusty box of film or video and say ‘here, take it,” he said.

In its early years, NHF operated from a small office space in the Hen House, the renovated structure in Blue Hill which then housed WERU Radio. But old film and video piled up in the basement of Weiss’s Blue Hill house. The not-for-profit needed a larger work area and room for climate-controlled storage.

Watch and listen to what it was like for the river drivers of Maine. Video courtesy of Northeast Historic Film.

The resurrection of the Alamo Theatre

The Alamo Theatre functioned as a commercial cinema until 1964. It had several incarnations – including stints as a night club and as a supermarket -- before closing down and falling into foreclosure and disrepair. In 1992, with community funding and a bank loan, NHF was able to buy the building for $37,500 at a bank foreclosure auction. 

Bucksport residents were excited to see work being done on the old cinema.

“People slipped letters underneath the front door asking us to bring back movies,” Weiss said.

Eventually, that wish came true in 1999 with the construction of a 35mm projection booth that enabled NHF, which by then had been able to hire a small staff, to screen restored films for  public viewings.  

Jane Donnell, a self-described history buff whose family goes back a few centuries in Maine, attended one of those screenings. 

“It was an old Bucksport high school football game film and I saw my mother, who was a cheerleader, and my father who was playing in the game. I was hooked,” she said.

Donnell is now one of seven staff members at NHF. Among her many tasks is managing the scheduling of the weekend movies that have helped defray NHF expenses by encouraging the community into the building.

“We are at the bottom of the food chain for film distribution because we only have one screen,” Donnell said. “Our goal is to run films before they go to streaming.”

Over the years the Alamo has managed to provide an entertaining mix of both contemporary and local films that regularly bring movie-goers to Bucksport. Many enjoy the short film and video restorations that precede the main feature, such as a 1938 home movie of a summer trip to Europe before the outbreak of World War II or a 1975 country music TV show sponsored by a Bangor car dealership.

The Alamo also offers a variety of tailored events, including the option of renting out the theater for your own private screening for $250 (with popcorn thrown in for free). For $500 you can even host your own stage show.

The new addition and a 2025 setback

In a modern addition to the cinema building, NHF continues its mission of restoring historic moving images. A multi-story conservation center, constructed in stages between 2000 and 2010–and still a work in progress–provides space for staff offices, vault storage and technical production. Donations from Maine foundations and individuals helped fund the work. Donors included the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation ($200,000); Robert Jordan, owner of a nearby Christmas tree farm, who loved silent films ($200,000); and Christopher Hutchins, owner of Dead River Oil ($1.1 million).  In addition, the National Endowment for the Humanities provided a $500,000 matching grant.

But when the Trump Administration created the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Alamo and NHF got some bad news.

“We got one of the biggest grants we’d had in many years from the NEH–$341,000,” Weiss said.  “The purpose of the grant was to digitize, preserve, catalogue and share all the television news film that had been taken in Maine from all the TV stations in the state that we had been gathering for decades.

But late one evening in early April, Northeast Historic Film got a letter from DOGE saying that the grant was terminated, and that the nonprofit was to cease work immediately on the project and send a final report.

Weiss and his team were already one year into the grant and all seven of the staff members were part of the project. As executive director he restructured work assignments, launched an emergency appeal to the community that brought in $40,000, and applied for and received a $50,000 grant from the Meyer Foundation in NYC.

“That’s kept the wolf from the door for now,” Weiss said.

To learn more about the Alamo’s films in September–which include an eclectic lineup including a “cat video fest,” a documentary on micro plastics, and the feature film remake of“The Naked Gun,” visit their  website.

Benjamin Branch, projectionist at the Alamo Theatre, talks about his passion for the job.