Before it became the Bijou Art Cinemas, the ivory, California-mission-style building on E. 13th Avenue was known as a place of worship. Built in 1925, the First Congressional Church held the space until 1956, when the building was taken over by a mortuary. With a history of worship and death, the location seems to be an odd place for a movie theatre.
The building’s facade is deceptive and doesn’t let on to the nature of what’s inside. Other than a small banner with the theater’s name, the Bijou remains hidden in plain sight.
“You walk in here and there’s a courtyard, it’s serpentine and the hallway to the bathroom is really creepy. It’s just got a character to it that is unlike any theater I’ve ever been in,” said Connor O’Boyle, the Bijou’s manager. “Nothing’s ever quite been the Bijou.”
The theater has been delivering foreign and independent films to Eugene since its establishment in 1980 by Michael Lamont, a film lover who secured the unique venue as a permanent location after screening films around town and campus for the community.
The theater still serves that purpose after Lamont’s death in 2007. Julie Blonshteyn became a part-owner of the independent theater in 2013 after meeting with the owning partners of the Bijou and a subsequent short trial period. Originally from Brooklyn, Blonshteyn wasn’t working in film, but knew she wanted to.
After taking editing classes at the New York Film Academy and finding the field too competitive and difficult to break into, she found a part-time opening at an independent theater near her home. Within two weeks, Blonshteyn was the manager.
Now, seven years later, she owns and operates the Bijou with a silent partner in New York.
“As soon as I walked in, I fell in love,” Blonshteyn said. “I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was.”
Ownership split
But it wasn’t easy for Blonshteyn to become the operator of the Bijou.
Blonshteyn joined the theater on a trial basis to see how she and the other partners worked with one another. In March 2013, Blonshteyn acquired 25% of the Bijou for $134,000. It was a time of growth for the Bijou — along with running the Bijou, the four partners were also expanding another popular small theater downtown — the Broadway Metro.
The difficulty of running the Bijou profitably while working on the Metro led to increased tensions between the partners over how to run the business, which concluded in legal action being taken by Blonshteyn against the other partners in September 2015.
Blonshteyn alleged that the true financial state of the company was being misrepresented and the Bijou was bordering on insolvency. Blonshteyn said that the partners were taking out high interest loans to cover expenses, and other loan payments, and requested that the court appoint a trustee to oversee the Bijou’s operations, according to court documents.
The court denied her complaint in October 2015 and said that it “does not believe that the concern rises to the level of demonstrating that the company is insolvent or in imminent danger of being insolvent,” adding that one loan would be paid off in December 2015 and that profitable months were ahead.
However, the court agreed that there was a substantial difference in how the partners believed the theater should be run. “And that is the rub. The parties disagree about how to run the business,” the court wrote in its judgement.
Now the two theaters are owned and operated separately.
A New Kind of Worship
For the past 40 years, the Bijou has stood out among other local theatres for its choice of films, its unique architecture and its proximity to campus. The theatre has even done showings of Rocky Horror Picture Show. It’s been a place where film-lovers and community members can meet to share in their love for cinema. So it’s no surprise that Blonshteyn isn’t alone in her fondness of the theater.
“This place was home before I even started working here,” O’Boyle said. “I’d been going to movies as a young adult once a week, and then seeing it in a church, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is my religion. I see a movie every Sunday or Saturday,’ and it just felt like home.”
O’Boyle, who’s worked at the Bijou for six years and been manager for the last four, says that after getting to know the staff, he was told of an opening and has been there ever since.
“We play content that’s challenging. You have an engaged audience that isn’t coming to zone out. The audience that shows up is there to talk to you or have an experience that is more profound than you would probably get at a megaplex,” O’Boyle said.
Securing films to screen is another difficulty for an independent theater like the Bijou.
With big companies acquiring smaller studios and established relationships between theater chains and major studios, the pickings are slim. The complicated task is handled by a booker for the theater that negotiates with the studios directly. But for Blonshteyn, the joys of running an independent theater outweigh the stress and concerns.
“Out of 10, I might get two of the films I want, if we’re lucky,” Blonshteyn said. “It’s so competitive. But our customers make this job great. I know a lot of our customers by name, I know their preferences for film and they educate me.”
With winters being the busy season, a lot rides on the success of that period to make up for the rest of the year being slow.
“This isn’t a business you get rich at,” Blonshteyn said. “The goal is to break even.”
But for many of the Bijou’s staff, sharing the experience of film is rewarding.
Sarah Peterson has been a staff member for over two years. Like O’Boyle, Peterson was also a regular customer before working at the Bijou. She was a film major at UO and often saw films there for fun or for class requirements. Peterson jumped at the opportunity to work at the theater after graduation when she wasn’t ready to move away.
“I think it’s really cool that we have a culture here where we can talk to a customer about movies we’ve had, movies we haven’t had, movies from 20 years ago,” Peterson said. “We just are movie lovers that want to talk to other movie lovers.”
Peterson particularly loves the rainbow gradient painted on the pillars of the vaulted ceiling. “This building just adds so much,” she said.
Forty years after opening its doors, the Bijou is beloved by community members for its selection of films and staff. As Cindy and George Kokis headed in to see “Cunningham,” a documentary exploring the life of famed dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham, Cindy gleefully whipped a Bijou cup she bought years back out of her bag and reflected on their decades of attendance.
“We were here when they were converting it from the funeral parlor,” Cindy said. “This is a good place to watch the kind of films that we like.”
