Kinonik is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit, and donations are tax-deductible.
About Us
Kinonik is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization whose mission is to enlighten and entertain audiences of all ages through projected screenings of celluloid classic films. Our current archive consists of more than 500 16mm films.
A century into the film industry, digital offers myriad options for viewing media that the pioneers of the film industry surely never envisioned. While the benefits of accessibility can’t be argued – something is missing.
Films have been created to give audiences the shared experience of temporary escape from the mundane into a world of heightened emotions and suspense that give them license to laugh, cry, gasp, chortle, and even shriek together.
The streaming experience is essentially solitary. The theater experience is unfolds with a community of many. The more solitary our world gets the lonelier our world gets and the less we experience common experiences
This is the magic of movies; it’s the difference in nuance between sprocketed frames of real images speeding past the bright bulb of a projector than the digitized experience of pixels on a flat screen.
We’re committed to preserving the film experience through the real-deal – projected screenings of must-see silent and sound classics.
Contact Us
Kinonik
121 Cassidy Point Drive
Portland, Maine 04102
Our Mission
Kinonik is a 501c3 non-profit corporation formed in 2016. We have a large collection of 16mm films made from 1900 through 1970 that we conserve in a studio in Portland. We screen selections from our films using xenon 16mm film projectors to audience of all ages. We have partnered with St. Lawrence Arts, Space Gallery, Portland Museum, Yarmouth Historical Society, Maine Film Association, Mayo Street Arts, and Friends of Congress Square Park to show our films to audiences of all ages.
Our mission is to collect and preserve 16mm movies, present films from our archive, educate and entertain our community, and support the appreciation of film as an art form. Our programming is multi-generational, designed to introduce the digital generation to the analog experience through screening 16mm films in mechanical projectors. We welcome everyone from 6-year-olds to 90-year-olds at affordable screenings of rarely seen classic films in friendly venues. The focus of the collection is auteur-directed films and other films of artistic, social, and cultural significance from the early silents to the early 1970s, including features, shorts, documentaries, animation, and experimental/art films.
Key to the Kinonik mission is the preservation of the analog experience in this digital world. The experience of seeing a film on film, with an audience of fellow film lovers, all staring up at a projected black and white image on a big screen has been mostly lost in this world of streaming films on LED panels. This film experience at Kinonik is not just nostalgic; it is the way that these works of cinematic art were intended to be experienced.
We have shown films at venues including SPACE, St. Lawrence Arts, Congress Square Park, Alice Gauvin Gallery, the Yarmouth Historical Society, and the screening room at the Kinonik studio. We have also loaned our 16mm films to the Cinéclub/Film Society de Montreal and to other cineaste organizations. We welcome collaborative relationships.
Our Board
- James Cradock
- Andy Graham, Acting Executive Director
- Gregory Jamie
- Skylar Thorne Kelly
- Nicholas Loukes
- David Nutty
- Carolyn Swartz
- Bob Wirtz
- Katherine Worthing