FilmScene

Between April and August 2025 the cinema was decorated, then defunded. It ended the summer a landlord. The Iowa Arts Council gave it the 2025 Governor's Arts Award for Film and Media on 29 April, the citation calling it Iowa's largest non-profit cinema; on 6 May the NEA terminated a $30,000 grant. On 1 August, with the nonprofit Resilient Sustainable Future for Iowa City, it bought 118 E. College out of foreclosure for $2.3 million, a storefront it had rented since 2013. The other tenants, Velvet Coat among them, were promised below-market rent, and the deal came with two years to raise a $230,000 down payment. Andrew Sherburne, who founded it with Andy Brodie in 2011, is still executive director. Five screens over two addresses: the Ped Mall for the rooftop, the Chauncey for Theater 1's 120 seats. Theater 3 holds twenty-five, so a sell-out is a real one.