Setting the Scene

The pandemic came seemingly out of nowhere for many, and in the blink of an eye, the world had changed all but overnight. From masks and social distancing to the global shutdown of most businesses and public spaces, it felt like something straight out of a movie.

This couldn’t be real life. This was just another strain of the flu, yet another supposed world ending catastrophe that we can gloss over in a couple of days.

Except Covid-19 was - and continues to be - very real.

Normal is a word that doesn’t make much sense these days, and though the light is finally starting to appear at the end of the tunnel, changes to daily life were sudden and jarring and ones that won’t soon be forgotten or reversed. For places like Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, these changes felt especially noticeable.

Take Court Street for example. What’s usually a bustling scene filled to the brim with students either walking to classes and grabbing some food during the day or packing into the multitude of local bars late into the night, turned into an almost frighteningly empty street void of any activity or life.

And while the empty bars and lonely brick parking spots were the most obvious in terms of strange sights, the message left on the brightly lit marquee of The Athena - Athens’ historic and beloved art house theater - felt especially heartbreaking. No scheduled films, no upcoming events, just a small request and a hopeful promise among the mass closure of not only local business but life as everyone knew it.

“Stay healthy, Athens. We’ll see you soon.”

Closing the Curtains

Theaters weren’t often the first form of local business to come to mind back at the start of shutdowns. Having already had to deal with the height of the streaming wars prior to Covid-19, the vitality of the movie theater industry has only become more overlooked and understated in the past couple of years. Seen increasingly more as something to do for fun every once in a while, the reach of the industry itself is simply something many just aren’t aware of.

Theaters are important not just for the broader film and television industries, but also for their ties to the local communities they call home - especially in towns like Athens. There is so much history, so much passion from both those who run and keep the theaters alive but also those who attend them and cherish them more than just for an average Sunday outing with friends.

While not known for having a lot of theaters in the area, nor ones that are part of the larger chains such as Regal or AMC, Athens is home to two independently run theaters that contribute so much to the town and the culture that is so very special and specific to Athens.

The first of these two is a bit newer to the OU scene, residing a bit farther away from campus on East State Street. Opened back in 2005, the Athena Grand serves as Athens’ multiplex theater with 11 screens that typically play the first run, larger film releases. With the building having previously been used as a grocery store, owner Rick Frame saw a lot of opportunity for what it could bring to the community as another theater.

“Due to the size of the building - since Athens didn’t have a large movie theater besides The Athena - we thought [it] would be a good possibility,” says Frame. In addition to the usual blockbuster fare, the Athena Grand is home to plenty of alternative content as well.

Usually hosting one or two special content showings a week, visitors can expect anything from Phantom events to anniversary movies to even ballet live streams. “We wanted to have more than just your regular movies,” says Frame.

Then, of course, there’s The Athena on Court Street, right in the heart of Athens and Ohio University. Also having been renovated from its prior use as a grocery store, The Athena has been around since 1915, making it one of the oldest movie theaters in the U.S. Ohio University purchased it in 2001 and after completing some major renovations, it’s since been operated by the College of Fine Arts as a three screen art house theater.

Current director of The Athena, Alexandra Kamody, has worked at it now for over 12 years. An Athens native, she began working at The Athena while getting her degree in English from OU. Primarily helping with the Athens International Film and Video Festival through the university’s work study program, Kamody came around just when the previous film fest director Ruth Bradley was getting The Athena up and operating into its current state.

“I kind of came in at this pivotal time and just worked my way up through the ranks into my current position,” she says. For Kamody, The Athena embodied her excitement at getting the local Athens community involved as well as the campus full of students all around the theater. Since becoming director, she’s constantly trying to find ways to create and run new and innovative events.

“Part of our mission is creating a shared space for OU and the Athens communities,” Kamody says. “And I felt like I was the woman for that job.”

So, for Athens, the Athena Grand and The Athena are more than just casual hang out spots to occasionally go see a film. Similar to many other towns and theaters around the country and the world, they offer so much to the community and are run and visited by people not only passionate about film but also about finding ways to connect with those who live around them.

It’s what made their closures a particularly hard pill to swallow in the midst of mass shutdowns due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Box Office Catastrophe

From the Athena Grand and The Athena in Athens to the largest multiplexes across the globe, Covid-19 struck the box office quickly and brutally. In everything from the amount of films released to the gross box office revenue, 2020’s numbers were miniscule compared to pre-pandemic 2019.

While students at Ohio University had this strange shift of going on spring break to having the break extended to then being told remote learning would be instituted for the foreseeable future - the shutdown came a bit more abruptly for businesses and especially the theaters in Athens.

Local establishments began to get the order to close shop on March 16, with that order extending to theaters on March 17. “At the time, we didn’t have a clue as to what was going to happen,” says Frame. Little did he and his staff know that the Athena Grand would remain completely closed for about the next 13 weeks.

For Kamody and her crew at The Athena, the closure was even more of a blindside as February of 2020 had been absolutely amazing for them. The month just before Covid-19 brought the world to a halt, The Athena was hosting sold out events left and right. From their first time doing the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts of Porgy and Bess to a silent short program that involved local musicians playing live music over comedy shorts from the 20s, business was better than ever.

In addition to the usual weekly showings of first run films, February even saw The Athena hosting the likes of nationally acclaimed autism activist and animal biologist Temple Grandin as she came to speak at their Science on Screen series that featured the HBO biopic on Grandin’s life. “We were just doing dozens of events, calendar booked, and really looking forward to a full Spring,” says Kamody.

The sudden March closure was ever more jarring for The Athena as the theater is usually open 365 days a year - even on holidays most of the time. “We really try to be open for everybody during times where they might not have something to do,” says Kamody. So, to suddenly have to stop everything for an unknown amount of time, it was a monumentally fast and devastating loss for both the theater and the community of Athens.

Art Houses in Athens

It’s easy to look at the big picture, take in all the numbers and compartmentalize it away in the overarching story that’s primarily been defined by the pandemic these past couple of years. Amidst the larger story, though, taking in-depth looks at personal experiences and smaller towns like Athens makes the bigger picture much more clear. Dates and times differed across the globe, but the themes and struggles were fairly consistent.

The Athena Grand reopened after about three months. Six months in, Frame and his staff were aware that the U.S. government was working on a Save Our Venues grant, but had to borrow money from various programs to stay open in the meantime. “We went for about a year not knowing if we were going to go bankrupt or lose everything,” he says.

The theater attempted things like encouraging people to grab popcorn to go in order to stay afloat through the strict environment created by Covid-19, but nothing really worked as a true money maker. Ultimately, after the possibility of the grant money came up, the Athena Grand was fortunate enough to work with their landlord in order to stay in the building.

“Our goal here is to give you a better experience than you could have at home,” says Frame. And while also being sure to recommend and follow CDC guidelines and the Athens mask mandate, that’s exactly what the two theaters in Athens tried to do.

Rental revenue, box office revenue, concessions revenue, all of it was lost for both the Athena Grand and The Athena like theaters everywhere. And while these were substantial losses, one of the most frightening things about the pandemic for any local business was the uncertainty that surrounded it all.

“I think we probably thought it was going to be for a week or so,” says Kamody.

The Big Picture

After submitting multiple safety proposals to try to open the theater at many different times, The Athena officially reopened on July 16 of 2021. “We really wanted to wait until we were sure we would be able to stay open and we were sure that we would be able to have a constant flow of product,” says Kamody.

Many other theaters had tried reopening but found themselves with no audiences or no movies to book but older releases. Kamody and The Athena wanted to do it once and once only, and ultimately chose to open in the summer so that audiences could have time to learn the safety protocols they spent so much time planning. The summer was also a perfect time to come back as days were slower and crowds were low with the Ohio University population not being back yet.

“We also kicked off our first successful crowdfunding campaign that helped us give a little boost to get some funds to reopen the theater,” says Kamody. “We got major support from the community there.” Of the three screens at The Athena, the theater planned to only use one at the initial reopening but due to the fact that they had waited, so many films were coming out and things began to move so quickly in a way that Kamody and her staff felt confident enough to try to reopen with as many films as they could handle.

In addition to the crowdfunding campaign, The Athena applied for and got several other grants that were incredibly helpful, such as the Save Our Stages grant. Many of the larger theaters throughout the U.S. and in the area got much larger grant funding in comparison to The Athena, but it was still very much beneficial for the small theater’s survival. “It made sense … and we received a significant award and that was really helpful,” says Kamody.

Reopening was one thing. Staying open and trying to get back to pre-Covid numbers while dealing with things like social distancing measures, was another thing entirely. “Obviously business was awful for many factors,” says Frame of his experience at the Athena Grand. “Studios quit putting movies out, [there was] the seating and peoples’ concerns about it.” Largely, they got by but only had access to old movies, which didn’t have the greatest draw for audiences.

“The bottom line is there was not much that we could do until the content started coming out,” says Frame. First it was films like the newest James Bond flick being postponed from July to October and then came the increasing prevalence of studios simultaneously releasing films in theaters and online, which didn’t exactly help the cause for theaters now dealing with a global pandemic. “Even probably prior to Covid, studios were trying to figure out how they could release online and keep people happy,” says Frame.

As a member of the National Alliance of Theater Owners, prior to the pandemic, films at the Athena Grand had a 90 day wait period before they could be released online, which most major studios conformed to. “With Covid, that all went out the door,” says Frame. “Prior to the pandemic, the biggest problem at that point was Netflix or whoever buying up a movie that would have otherwise been released in a theater.” It hadn’t had much of an effect, really. But now it was just another obstacle tacked on to a time when it was even a hassle to get products like popcorn bags.

Being privately owned, though, did come with some benefits for the Athena Grand. Not only has it been easier to deal with customers one on one and run the business personally day to day, but smaller independently owned theaters also only have to worry about themselves. “You know, if you take a Cinemark, something that has buildings that cost $20 million - it’s probably been a bit more devastating to them in that sense, I would think,” says Frame.

Not to mention, the support of the local community for art house theaters in particular like The Athena meant absolutely everything in terms of getting through Covid-19. The Athena had a lot of families do pod rentals for their screens and found ways to stay connected even during the widespread shutdowns.

“What we do here is more of a niche thing - art house independent films - and that’s not always going to pay the bills,” says Kamody. “So, having a really supportive community and being creative and finding other sources of revenue are important. And we just felt that good energy.”

The Athens International Film and Video Festival

While The Athena and Athena Grand were figuring out their paths through Covid-19, Athens - like many other communities around the world - had another pillar of its film and cultural scene to sort through in terms of the pandemic: the Athens International Film and Video Festival.

Started by a group of film students, AIFVF has been hosted by The Athena yearly since 1974. It’s a film festival that’s largely supported experimental work and extremely independent cinema since its founding. Entirely unique and important to Athens, it takes a lot of risks and presents a lot of films that most likely would never be shown in the town otherwise and the community understands that and cherishes it greatly.

AIFVF brings together the townies, the students and, of course, the filmmakers as well from all around the world that have come to the fest and other fests on the circuit for years. “Accessing all those different communities has been really important to me,” says director David Colagiovanni. “Empowering different communities, giving people something different has always been important to me too.”

The Athens International Film and Video Festival is now in its 49th year and Colagiovanni has been running it since 2015, while also serving as the director of the Athens Center for Film & Video as well as a professor at OU. After having lived in Athens and attending the festival for years, he reached out to Ruth Bradley - the previous director of the festival for 30 years - and started doing some screening work with her and helping with things like programming and graphic design for the film fest.

When Bradley retired, it only made sense for Colagiovanni to apply since he knew the history and importance of AIFVF so well. “I felt like I had a good grasp of what that meant, what the festival meant to the community and to the larger film community as well,” he says. “So, I applied and luckily I got the job and I’ve loved every day since.”

In addition to showcasing everything from animated shorts to documentaries made by community members about local stories, the Athens film fest also has the distinction of being Academy qualifying. This makes it one of about 100 festivals around the world that if a film is programmed and then is given the highest award by the fest jury in its respective category, it then goes onto the longlist for the Oscars. From Athens, it can be chosen, eventually put on a shortlist and maybe even get an Academy Award.

This means that AIFVF often gets the best films from so many different countries, in addition to all of those from the major film festivals coming to Athens as well. “The ability to see work from all around the world is not something you get to do very often,” says Colagiovanni. And it’s something he notes as being important as moviegoers are much more likely to take a risk on a film at a fest than at home.

In a typical year, the Athens International Film and Video Festival season begins in early August, when Colagiovanni and his crew open the fest up for entries. They start pre-screening these entries with a group of community volunteers as well as students from OU enrolled in the film festival practicum. In any given year, AIFVF gets between 2,500 and 3,000 submissions. By the end of winter break, roughly 230 to 270 of these films are chosen as the best to be shown.

From there, the works are put into screen blocks - specifically the short films. “We don’t have any predetermined themes,” says Colagiovanni. “When we start, we just kind of feel it out.” For instance, films that may be about work or sports can be put into a block entitled “Blood, Sweat and Tears.” Or some of the animated shorts geared more toward younger kids can be grouped together and called “Lil Squiggles.”

These blocks and films are then laid out on a big table in order to build a schedule. After staring at the mass amount of films in front of him the first year he took over as director, Colagiovanni got some advice from the fest’s previous director that he’s kept in mind ever since: “You’re building a three-dimensional puzzle and you don’t know what the shape of it is. But, once things start, it will all start to lock into place. You just have to keep moving stuff around.”

Finally, after two weeks of this “moving around,” a schedule along with descriptions is uploaded to the fest’s website. Printed programs, posters and promotional materials are created and distributed and then the festival happens. Independent jurors watch all of the works and award the best of the best, but AIFVF also sees a lot of filmmakers travel to Athens to represent their work. “On a normal year, we have like 50 to 75 filmmakers that come in from all around the world and stay for the week or stay for a few days,” says Colagiovanni.

Incredibly popular within the OU and Athens communities as well, the fest screenings throughout the usual week-long event are packed with a wide range of film enthusiasts trying to see as many screenings as possible. “So, you get to see the films with an audience, which I think is really important,” says Colagiovanni.

At least, that’s what this all looks like in a normal year. And as everyone has come to realize by this point, 2020 was anything but normal.

By March of 2020, everything was on track: the screening was done, the blocks were made and the schedule was ready. Spring break for OU was in full swing, while those involved with the fest were hard at work. “I was in the office with a former student helping me with print traffic,” says Colagiovanni.

Filmmakers were being emailed about last minute details, a couple designers were making graphics for Instagram, the type was being set for the program that the Athens Messenger would soon be printing out. Festival work was buzzing.

And then the news about Covid started to spread.

Life was still happening, there were a few cases here and there in the U.S. “Then we saw that South by Southwest was canceled,” says Colagiovanni. “And we were like, ‘yeah, it’s gonna’ happen here too.’”

Colagiovanni and his team began to update graphics with emergency safety warnings like reminders for visitors to wash their hands. But after a couple of days of moving forward largely business as usual, the realization set in that the Athens International Film and Video Festival wouldn’t be happening that year.

So, Colagiovanni called Kamody and her staff over at The Athena to figure out a date in October that would work. It was announced to filmmakers and sponsors and on social media that the fest would be postponed for safety reasons, which garnered a pretty positive response. Then came the extension of OU’s spring break, and shortly after that, the announcement by Ohio’s Governor Mike DeWine that shutdowns were coming.

While activity for AIFVF started slowing down, the whole world - and subsequent film festivals - went online. “I watched a few of those, which were okay,” says Colagiovanni. Many film festivals chose to go right online just a couple weeks after the shutdown, with a lot also being free to viewers. “But that didn’t quite make sense for us,” says Colagiovanni.

With narratives, documentaries, features and everything in between, there’s so much that just didn’t seem to fit in a schedule formatted to an online platform for the Athens film fest. Using other festivals as reference, a few systems were looked at and tried. But after countless discussions, August of 2020 rolled around and the realization hit that the postponed October date wouldn’t be able to happen either - so, the 2020 festival was rescheduled again to now coincide with the 2021 festival in April.

Then came February and it became clear that April wasn’t going to happen either. So, again, the now double fest was moved one more time to October of 2021 with the help of The Athena in order to fit all the works in. “They were awesome and huge supporters,” says Colagiovanni. “It was really, really fantastic to be able to have that flexibility.”

Return of the Fest

“It’s a huge point of pride,” says Kamody of the Athens International Film and Video Festival. “It’s one of a kind. I think our festival has always stood out for the programming and for the intimate experience it offers.” The impact of the festival on the Athens community is amazing in and of itself, but the reputation of AIFVF in the filmmaking community is one of the core reasons postponement as opposed to moving online was chosen.

A lot of the content at AIFVF is challenging and slower in ways that have amazing payoffs meant to be seen in a theater and not at home. “You’re there, in the present, with the piece. And on the computer? It’s just a different experience,” says Colagiovanni.

Postponing the festival also allowed for more student participation in terms of the screening process. Typically, Colagiovanni has to take a lot of the screening duties upon himself over winter break at OU, but the delays gave him and his students more time to breathe. “Since we had a longer window, the class was allowed to participate in that, which was really nice,” he says.

Filmmakers for the 2021 portion of the double festival were told that final decisions would be in by May, so more time was allotted to the programming phase. With the help of a few graduate students over the summer, Colagiovanni put together the schedule and programs and finally - after multiple delays - the 47th and 48th installments of the Athens International Film and Video Festival happened jointly over 10 days and two weekends in October of 2021.

“It was an amazing experience to have it all back and bigger than before,” says Colagiovanni. In fact, due to many festivals being canceled and countless others moved online, AIFVF was the first time many of the visiting filmmakers got to screen their film in person or at all.

“Some of the filmmakers that came to this festival, their film had been on the festival circuit for two years,” says Colagiovanni. “And this was their first in-person screening. So, I’m glad we waited.”

The Athena was equally happy to have waited. “It’s kind of this magical thing that happens every year and getting to see people that you haven’t seen for two years come back - who come every year [and] camp out in the theater all week - that just brings this really great energy,” says Kamody.

Colagiovanni was sure to check in with her a lot through the delays. The two kept track of what might work and what might not work for the fest, and were always on the same page in staying flexible and putting their energy toward the best places. “I just have to give kudos to David,” says Kamody. “Being able to do it in person was so important and I was so glad that that’s how it ended up.”

The festival was obviously still masked, still tame and under strict social distancing guidelines. “But it seemed like a big celebration,” says Colagiovanni.

All of the previously invited guests stayed on through the postponement and attended. Only a couple things were done differently, other than the Covid-safe protocols put in place. For instance, the ticket table is usually stuck inside the lobby of The Athena, but for the double fest return, it was put outside. This way, it was safe but also brought a lot of energy outside the theater and drew some people in who were unaware of the festival.

Other than returning to form, Colagiovanni’s only change for the future is keeping the screening process online in its looser format. “It’s got more engagement from everyone. Everybody has more of a voice than when we were in person,” he says.

And, sure, the 10 day event at a venue that had been closed for nearly a year and a half brought some technical problems with it and maybe certain things could have gone more smoothly. But the energy was back for the Athens International Film and Video Festival and for all of the students and staff that worked so hard to get it back.

“When the film fest happened, it was like - ‘oh yeah,’” says Kamody. “Like, this is important what we do and people are here for it and they didn’t go away.”

Future Projections

With something like Covid-19, it’s hard to pinpoint the future precisely for anything, let alone a specific industry. But looking into and recognizing the challenges ahead are solid first steps, and with box office numbers starting to begin the climb back up to pre-pandemic proportions, there is some hope to be had.

From television to VHS, countless things and events have been looked at as the end of the movie theater industry before. Perhaps streaming platforms and a global pandemic are just another couple of obstacles to adapt to and overcome. “It’s pushed the industry to be much better than I think it would have been otherwise,” says Frame.

Numbers at the Athena Grand have been fluctuating like any other theater in the world. At one point, it got back to about 55 percent of its 2019 numbers only to see that fall to roughly 38 percent after Athens announced the city’s face mask policy. “We have since got back to reasonable numbers,” says Frame. “So, we kind of see an end in sight.”

Lately, the Athena Grand has been putting big openings into two or three different theaters so that social distancing is possible. In terms of patrons figuring out the new ways of life, there have been a few incidents in regard to the mask mandate and other things being in effect. The police have been called a couple of times, but like anywhere else, it’s just that some people are okay with the world’s situation and some aren’t. “Confrontation is a new thing. When 99% of customers understand the situation, there’s that 1% that has presented a new challenge when something such as this has been so politicized,” says Frame.

Namely, for owners of independent theaters like Frame, there’s also the uncertainty of how overall life plans have changed the past couple of years. “Well, I’m 65 and … you know, you go from thinking you’re going to retire and then in a matter of a month, worried you’re going to lose your house,” says Frame. “So, it’s been quite stressful, but again, we were able to weather that and I think we’re going to come out of it okay.”

Similar to Frame, Kamody has seen up and down numbers in terms of box office revenue at The Athena as well. But, based on crowds alone, all signs seem to be pointing upward with events getting fully back into the swing of things at the theater. “We’re back to where we were with our first run films and having a really great season so far,” says Kamody. “So, maybe even ahead of where we were.”

Rising Stars

In addition to the local theaters and film festival navigating the challenges of Covid-19, Ohio University also had its own set of problems to tackle in Athens in regard to the student body - especially so in their fine arts and film programs.

“In the arts, we had to be more vigilant and more careful than just about everybody else,” says Matthew Shaftel. “So much of what we do requires what was - particularly at the beginning - higher risk types of behaviors.”

Now in his fifth year as the Dean of the College of Fine Arts, Shaftel was front and center for not just the shutdown of the schools but also of the art making equipment spaces and other things like film camera rentals. One hundred percent of the College of Fine Arts needed replacement activities, but despite the challenge, the school kept to a motto: “possible, not desirable.”

As early as the Spring, things like student recitals were moved online where they would be in a room by themselves - their pianist 10 feet away - being live streamed to an audience. Dance students were being taught through online instruction in their living rooms and art students were being shipped equipment that they needed. The college also utilized large outdoor spaces for live theater productions and movie screenings and made sure to do things like rent out their indoor theater space for private groups of people. “We figured some of those things out very early on because we were following the research so carefully,” says Shaftel.

Throughout the summer, online teaching training was held for faculty and there was online funding available for all of the staff and all of the units of the College of Fine Arts that were more public facing like The Athena through a multitude of grants that were written.

Specifically, for the school of film at OU, things played out pretty similarly to the theaters and film festival. December had a lot of light chit chat about the pandemic, while February brought with it worsening news. “We were moving forward with productions at that point, somewhat innocently, but with a little bit more trepidation,” says director of the school of film Steven Ross. “And then that fateful spring break [came] where suddenly everything shut down.”

With a grad and MFA program in film at Ohio University, about a third of the first year students had shot their large narrative projects for the spring, while the other two thirds - as well as the second year and thesis films - were not able to shoot. The school has also only had a BFA for three years, and the first ever students in it had to go home while everything was suddenly adapted to an online format.

“But filmmaking is adapting to contingencies, so we adapted to that,” says Ross. For things like a thesis, students were allowed to write a script and create animated storyboards as opposed to shooting on sets, with many even being able to find voice actors.

After this first phase of everything being shut down through the end of September, phase two granted permission for film students - as well as science and art students - to return to campus. For this, Ross helped to develop the OU school of film Covid-19 production guidelines. Modeled after Hollywood and industry practices, it was about 14 pages of guidelines that included creating pods, quarantine procedures, having health safety officers on every set and submitting safety plans for productions. It was a lot, and there were a couple hiccups along the way, but it allowed student films to be made for the 2020-2021 academic year.

Many, of course, were grateful in the school of film to be able to move so quickly back to in-person instruction. Associate professor Tom Hayes teaches mostly post production as well as documentary development and found the quick turnaround from spring break to remote learning to be one of the more chaotic circumstances to overcome. “It was really difficult. The workload just sort of exploded, [trying] to make anything compelling for my students during that period,” he says.

Much of the faculty was in freefall with little to no experience at creating online teaching modules. Hayes and many others created standalone downloadable lectures for some classes and used platforms like Zoom for others. For technical classes, like Hayes’ on Avid Media Composer, he would put his interface being taught up on one screen, his students’ on another, and work alongside them step by step. For other classes, remote learning just didn’t seem to jell correctly. “I like the experience of interacting with students face to face, as opposed to just putting downloadable lectures up, that was really frustrating,” says Hayes.

At the same time, though, certain things almost seemed better in a strange way. Hayes started doing a lot of table screenings through Zoom during the remote learning portion of the pandemic and, in addition to not having to commute, found it easier and more effective. In fact, a lot of adaptations and practices used throughout Covid-19 for both professional and scholarly filmic work might have some longevity coming out of it.

By the time fall rolled around, even with the minimal number of students who came back at first, all of the equipment and spaces - with distancing requirements in place - were ready at each of the six schools in the College of Fine Arts. “We didn’t have a single major outbreak,” says Shaftel. As guidelines changed, and OU eventually came forward with a vaccine mandate, more and more students returned and more spaces like The Athena opened back up.

Between masked recitals, huge tents and covered spaces outdoors, more and more became possible as time went on. “The goal [was] trying to keep students engaged in the making,” says Shaftel. “Because that’s really what we’re about. We’re about creating and making.”

And now, after the university was largely a ghost town, the 2021-2022 school year brought even more life back to OU and Athens. “This year has been strange because there’s been kind of, in my sense, more of a laissez faire attitude,” says Ross. “It just doesn’t feel as prevalent this year as it did last year.”

The school of film is right back into spring production season with in-person shoots and instruction, even with variants and persistent Covid cases on the horizon every day. But, there’s hope now, for both the professional industry as a whole and the future professionals soon to be sent into it by OU.

“I think my faculty is appreciative of OU’s mandate, that it’s good on them for standing up for that,” says Ross. “There are certain universities that just haven’t been able to politically be in a position to do that.” This isn’t all in the rearview mirror yet, but it does discernibly feel like it’s getting further and further away, especially for a school willing to address it and students perhaps most capable of adapting to adversity and taking it in stride.

“To be perfectly honest, it did not really seem to hit film students that much,” says Ross. “There’s been a very good culture here where, you know, we’re not that large. So, the idea of wearing masks and adhering to protocol is just easy and simple.”

Where Do We Go From Here?

The pandemic isn’t quite over yet, and it may never have a clear cut off. Despite that, the overall box office is starting to look up and life is starting to at least get somewhat back on track in all sectors of it. And this, of course, stands true for Athens and its film institutions.

For the Athena Grand, the hope is to get back to those lovely 2019 numbers and keep staff dedicated to the theater - some who have stuck with it for more than 14 years - around. “I think it’s an asset to Athens to have a theater this size in a small community,” says Frame.

For Kamody and The Athena, it’s all about embracing the hectic times and challenges with her staff. The pandemic allowed them to build up and maintain a family-like feel within the building, despite some of the learning curves and bumps they had to overcome. “We have gotten really busy, really fast … and they have really been there and made sure we could keep the doors open and get people into their movies,” says Kamody.

The focus, especially as of late, has been getting everyone more involved through more specialized positions for each person the theater employs. Patricia Porter serves as The Athena’s digital communications manager and sends out the weekly email newsletter. Phoenix LaCombe is an office assistant who also runs the Facebook account for the theater. Kris Shortridge is one of the managers, but also does a lot of ordering for posters and concessions. “We’re really trying to give each of our students more responsibility, so they also feel more invested in the theater,” says Kamody.

For up and coming filmmakers and students, the pandemic served as a sizable and very much substantial portion of their lives. “I kind of grieve about that for our students,” says professor Hayes. “I think the whole social aspect of it was so critical because the things that you carry out of school - some of the most important things - are the relationships that you form that cascade into your future career.”

It was and continues to be difficult for many, but there’s been a lot of growth to come out of the turmoil. “The upside is that we’ve learned a lot about what is possible to put online, so a lot of our classes now have hybrid components and we’re managing space better,” says Dean Shaftel. The College of Fine Arts is actually at its largest enrollment in the history of the program at OU, so there are things to come out of Covid-19 like hybrid class structures that will serve as long-term benefits.

“We now have access to really amazing faculty instructors in New York City who are involved heavily in the theater industry, who can teach for us because we now realize you can do some of these things online,” says Shaftel.

As for rekindling the vitality of in-person creation and interaction for creative fields and film especially, it will take time for sure, but it’s getting there. “I think we have to be really, really conscious that we’re trying to rebuild that engagement,” says Shaftel. “We have to be patient. We have to give people a lot of room and space to understand that face to face is okay.”

For these upcoming students, though, they can even serve as the standard for what’s next in the theater and film industry. With the largest incoming class of film students ever coming up for OU’s film program, the safety protocols that have been developed are, of course, super strict in terms of things like staying in bubbles and wearing masks and filming outdoors as much as possible or doing certain things online. “But what’s amazing is we’ve had two of our graduates move to California and their job is to be in charge of the Covid standards for production,” says Shaftel. “They basically adopted our film safety standards in Los Angeles, so I’m really proud.”

And whether it’s students and professors or directors and actors, only time will tell what the future holds for the industry. But, it seems clear at least that no one plans on letting anything stop the film and theater industry completely any time soon.

“I think the desire is there from students to be making films, the desire from the faculty is that students make films, so there is that kind of mutual agreement” says Ross. “The filmmaking will go on.”

Swinging Back to the Silver Screen

While there isn’t an exact end to Covid-19 for the movie theater industry, or any part of life really, the 2021 holiday season brought with it something that felt like a return to form for entertainment: the blockbuster release of Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Barron’s reported that the film brought in $253 million just in its opening weekend alone, which was more than enough to obliterate the pandemic-era record. Defying the continued fear of the pandemic through recent spreads and outbreaks of variants like Omicron, Spider-Man: No Way Home’s debut was the third best U.S. debut of all time - behind only its fellow Marvel companions Avengers: Endgame and Avengers: Infinity War - and made more money in its first weekend alone than any other film grossed throughout the entire pandemic.

Not to mention, CEO of AMC Entertainment, Adam Aron, stated in a tweet following the film’s release that it was the chain’s biggest December debut and the second biggest opening for AMC ever. And, yes, it’s just one film, but it might also be a sign of what’s to come.

In just this upcoming year alone there are three MCU films slated to be released, four DCEU films and countless other sequels to various franchises and new blockbuster films. Nothing is for certain, but there’s a very real chance that 2022 sees the box office climb back up to pre-pandemic 2019 levels. From there, if movie theaters begin to prosper again, it could even lead to theatrical windows being lengthened once more in order to combat the ever looming presence of streaming services over the industry.

Again, nothing is set in stone. The answers aren’t just there to be looked at and we are, in fact, just talking about superheroes. But, as funny as it may sound, Spider-Man may be the glint of hope the movie theater industry was looking for. It’s a clear indication that people still want to go to the theater and be part of not just these films, but these massive cultural events.

And it’s hard to deny that finally walking down the bricks of Court Street in Athens, Ohio, and seeing The Athena’s marquee brightly lit once again with films and events was a very welcome and very beautiful sight after such an uncertain and long couple of years. Whatever lies ahead, there is at least hope - in small towns like Athens and in theaters all around the world.