Film buffs rescue 1930s Mayfair Theatre

A 76-year-old heritage theatre slated to close at the end of November will keep film stars moving across its single silver screen after all.

A group of Ottawa film industry professionals has negotiated a medium-term lease with the owner of the historic Mayfair Theatre in Old Ottawa South.

"You know, it's like the circus is back in town," said a member of the group, filmmaker Lee Demarbre, with a laugh. "We're going to bring the spectacle back to the movie-going audience."

Demarbre promised events such as late-night screenings and ones where the audience is invited to participate, and screenings of movies ranging from Hollywood to cult classics, including first-run, art, indie, foreign and home-grown films.

Running his own theatre has been a life-long dream.

"My father was military police when I was young, and I would beg him to quit and become a projectionist. I wanted him to work in a cinema so I could go see free movies."

Demarbre said the owner of the Mayfair building built in 1932 wanted it to remain a theatre, and approached Demarbre, along with fellow filmmaker Ian Driscoll, film scholar John Yemen and Paul Gordon, a professional film conservator and part-time projectionist.

The group will spend December touching up the interior of the theatre and installing a new sound system and will reopen it with a party on Jan. 2.

The Mayfair Theatre is the only existing cinema in Ottawa built before the Second World War. It is a Spanish Revival-style theatre intended to suggest the ambience of a Mediterranean plaza, featuring an interior with ornate stone facades, faux balconies along the side walls, wrought ironwork, drapery and ornamental glass windows.

City council voted in October to protect the brick building with heritage designation, which means the theatre's owner would need permission to alter or tear down the building.

A lawyer for the theatre's owner had argued that the single-screen theatre isn't viable as a business and the building needs costly repairs, including a new roof.