With the Key Biscayne Film Festival about a month away, the Council wasted no time at its Tuesday meeting in christening the island’s new theater inside Town Hall chambers.
The name – drumroll please – is Paradise Cinema. It beat out Island Reel House and Cinema Paradiso. The Village put a call out in November to name the movie house.
“The great news is we got 82 submissions,” Village Manager Steve Williamson said. “So that means people are interested in this. The difficulty is, we had to narrow this down to a couple of choices.”
Council Member Fernando Vazquez liked Island Reel House. “I’m a little old-fashioned, old school.”
Council Member Michael Bracken, however, said Paradise Cinema was his choice, but then he became torn between the two. Mayor Joe Rasco voted for Paradise Cinema and soon Council Members Ed London and Vice Mayor Oscar Sardiñas came on board.
Council Members Nancy Stoner and Frank Caplan were not present to vote.
Paradise Theater – or some version of it – is historical. Cinema Paradiso is a 1988 Italian film classic. It is also the name of a popular album by the rock band Styx that centered on the lifespan of a well-known movie theater in Chicago.
The idea of converting the Council Chambers into a dual-use space arose due to the overwhelming popularity of the film festival.
Isabel Custer, artistic director and programmer for the film festival, said the name choice “was definitely in line with my sentiment.”
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“We are third to offer part of the Third Annual Key Biscayne Film Festival in the Paradise Cinema, which is a huge advancement for us,” Custer said.
Cinema, she said, needs to be viewed in certain conditions and atmosphere with high quality screen and projector, and finely tuned audio. The Community Center served as a makeshift theater for the last two years.
“To recreate a movie theater in one of the rooms of the Community Center, it ran at a very high cost,” she said.
She gave a shoutout to Claire London and Mary Tague, who lobbied the Council to create the theater. Council Member Ed London, the spouse of Claire, supported the plans, as well. Rasco even quipped during the meeting that maybe it should be called the Ed London Theater.
The Key Biscayne Film Festival runs from Jan 29 through Feb. 1.
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JOHN PACENTI is a correspondent of the Key Biscayne Independent. John has worked for The Associated Press, the Palm Beach Post, Daily Business Review, and WPTV-TV.