Lumiere Beverly Hills Independent Cinema: $15 Q&A Saturday

Lumiere Cinema is the only arthouse in Beverly Hills, and it is owned by the people who sell you the ticket. Lauren Brown, Luis Orellana and Peter Ambrosio, three longtime Laemmle employees, took over the old Music Hall at 9036 Wilshire Blvd in 2019 and run it as a fully independent three-screen cinema. On Saturday, October 24, its Twisted Signals day sells every film as a separate $15 admission.

The building opened in 1936 as the Elite Theatre, designed by architect Wilfred P. Verity, with a remodel around 1960 by J. Arthur Drielsma. It joined the Laemmle circuit in 1974 as a home for independent and foreign films and was split into three houses in the 1990s. When Laemmle decided to leave in 2019, the three staffers stepped in and reopened it on November 29, 2019 as the Lumiere Music Hall.

The triplex layout explains how the place feels. Seating dropped from 824 as a single auditorium to 509 today, divided into House 3 at the front with 259 seats and two smaller rear rooms of 148 and 102 seats. Even the biggest room is a fraction of a multiplex auditorium, so sightlines stay close to the screen wherever you sit. The owners point visitors to theater historian Bill Counter's site for the long version of the building's past.

The calendar packs a dozen titles into a single day across three rooms. A Wednesday in late October starts with Never After Dark, The Incomer and Buddy before 2 pm, moves to Filipinana, The History of Concrete and Winter of the Crow in mid-afternoon, then runs Atonement, the Toronto Godspell documentary You Had to Be There and If I Go Will They Miss Me around 6 pm. The late slot brings Bad Apples, Tony and Clean Hands after 8 pm.

Most of these are small international releases and documentaries that skip the multiplexes. Bad Apples, for example, is a 100-minute British comedy thriller from director Jonatan Etzler about a primary school teacher who ends up locking a troublesome ten-year-old in her home. New openings arrive on Fridays, with Viana: The Legend of the Golden Hearts and Ten Will starting October 23 and Aegean Love following on October 30.

Saturday, October 24 is the busiest day of the month. Twisted Signals' Movie Mixtape starts at noon with The Nail Gun Massacre, presented by Pure Cinema Podcast hosts Elric Kane and Brian Saur, followed by Screen Drafts Live! at 2:00 pm. The Los Angeles premieres of The Man Whom Trees Loved at 5:00 pm and Bluebird at 7:30 pm bring their filmmakers, and A Serbian Documentary closes the night at 10:00 pm with filmmaker Stephen Biro and A Serbian Film director Srdjan Spasojevic in attendance.

Two other events show how much the room depends on local filmmakers. On Monday, October 26, Open Screen returns, a monthly open mic where anyone with a film under ten minutes can see it projected. A $15 ticket gets you on the list first come, first served, and $30 guarantees a slot. Horror fans should mark Wednesday, November 11 at 7:30 pm, when Larry Fessenden presents Trauma or, Monsters All with a Q&A.

A word of judgment on the Twisted Signals lineup: A Serbian Documentary at 10:00 pm is aimed squarely at extreme-cinema fans, so skip it if you came for the podcast fun at noon. The afternoon pairing of The Man Whom Trees Loved and Bluebird is the better bet for anyone who wants new independent work with the filmmakers present. Every slot is a separate ticket, so you can build a two-film afternoon instead of committing to the whole day.

For a regular release, a weeknight show after 7 pm is the sweet spot, because earlier screenings fall in the hardest parking window. Q&A nights are where the room comes alive. This month alone, Contra Celluloid hosted director Fede Alvarez after Evil Dead (2013) on October 20, and A. Rimbaud played on October 16 with director Patrick Wang and Acropolis founder Jordan Cronk taking questions afterward.

The theater publishes its own parking maps by day and hour, and they are worth reading. After 7 pm on weekdays parking gets much easier because the anti-gridlock zone on Wilshire opens up. After 5 pm on weekdays and all day on weekends, the parking structure one block west on Wilshire charges a flat $10. Daytime weekdays are the hardest time to park, and Sunday is the easiest, according to the cinema.

The cinema's maps break the week into windows: weekdays before 4 pm, after 4 pm, after 6 pm and after 7 pm, and Saturdays before 2 pm, after 2 pm, after 4 pm and after 6 pm, plus a separate Sunday map. The theater says the maps are not comprehensive, so read the posted signs on any side street. For a Saturday matinee, the flat-rate structure is the low-stress choice.

Walk east along Wilshire and within a few blocks you reach the Saban Theatre, a 1930 Art Deco movie palace that now hosts concerts and comedy, its tower visible from blocks away. Head west instead and Rodeo Drive and the Beverly Hills shopping triangle are roughly a mile away, which makes for an easy pre-show walk on a mild evening. The residential streets north of Wilshire are quiet and leafy if you just want air between two films.

If the film you came for is sold out, the Laemmle Royal in West Los Angeles, the circuit these owners came from, is a short drive west on Santa Monica Blvd. Otherwise, sort the Lumiere schedule by film rather than by date to find the next showing of the same title later in the week.

Address: 9036 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90211. Screens: three houses with 259, 148 and 102 seats. Twisted Signals on Saturday, October 24: each film is a separate $15 admission. Open Screen on Monday, October 26: $15 for first-come filmmaker sign-ups or $30 for a guaranteed spot. Parking: flat $10 at the structure one block west after 5 pm weekdays and all weekend.

Showtimes and tickets are on the cinema's website, sorted by date or by film, and its weekly newsletter lists special events and new openings. Ask the Karpo APP to match a Lumiere showtime with dinner on Wilshire and the easiest parking window, and it will plan the evening around the screening you pick.