LOFT FILM FEST

Happy 90th birthday to Bruce Dern, recipient of the 2014 Lee Marvin Maverick Award, which was presented by Pamela Marvin.

He joined us for a Q&A alongside Stacey Keach after a screening of Nebraska.

The Showcase Cinema, the current home of The Loft Cinema, opened on this date in 1969! Here's a photo from that year from the Tucson Citizen archives.

Oliver would be the first 70mm film screened at the location, opening on July 18, 1969.

Here's more history of the location provided by dallasmovietheaters on cinematreasures.org:

B-movie producer Robert L. Lippert was a widescreen expert having produced low-budget Regalscope films during his movie producing days. So it was little surprise that when he started Tucson’s Showcase Luxury Cinema, it was a single-screen roadhouse theatre. Lippert’s Transcontinental Theatres Circuit would hit 120 theaters but the Showcase was his first in Tucson and #67 in the San Francisco based chain. The $350,000 Showcase launched May 29, 1969 with “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” Its curved 22x55' screen seated 600 patrons in continental loge seating and was going to make every effort to book 70mm films. The theater appears to be architected by Tucson’s Terry Atkinson though similar to other Transcontinental theaters around the country of this period has some differences likely incorporated by Atkinson. It featured a beautiful double-storied glass front leading into a spacious high-ceiling and open lobby area. Well prior to the opening, the Showcase was advertising a road show of “Oliver” that was two months away from opening.

“Oliver’s” road show run was 2.5 months and replaced with the popular, “Easy Rider” and would have the road show of “Dr. Zhivago” and a three-month run of “Hello, Dolly” during its first year of exhibition. In the battle for clearances, Lippert had to bid $50,000 for “Dolly” and said he would never fight / bid that much for a clearance again despite the film’s success.

As the booking of a single-screen film was high risk, the theatre had some losers in 1970 and opted to add a second screen called the Penthouse. This was the circuit’s practice all over the country as they would transform their high-ceiling entryway lobbies into a lobby housing a 175-seat auditorium above which was reachable by stairway. Similar setups with in Lawton, OK, Chattanooga, TN, and Richmond, VA were placed in those luxury roadshow houses. To make life easier, the theater used an automated Cinemeccanica Victoria 18 projector that could handle 2.5 hours of film on a single reel.

On July 28, 1972, the Penthouse was renamed and the theater marketed as the Showcase Cinema 1 & 2. The Penthouse/Cinema 2 concept paid dividends. Among the theater’s most successful runs was “Fiddler on the Roof.” It ran as a road show for 13 weeks and would have left the theater were it not for the renamed Cinema 2. “Fiddler” switched to the Showcase 2 running 17 more weeks for a profitable 30-week run. “The Sting” beat that playing 40 weeks between 1973 and 1974. “Earthquake” in Sensurround was a revelation. But beginning in 1975 with new competition and other chains more eager to pay high for clearances for “Jaws,” “Star Wars,” and other films, the Showcase drifted as “the place” for big films.

Under AMC, the theater would become the Showcase 2 moving to art house fare much of the time. The New Loft closed on Fremont and would move here in 1992. Ten years later, it would become a non-profit membership art house still called The Loft adding a third screen in 2014.

We're 6 months away from the 2026 Loft Film Fest, which will be taking place from Wednesday, November 11 through Thursday, November 19 at The Loft Cinema!

Film submissions are now being accepted at https://filmfreeway.com/LoftFilmFest

We are now accepting film submissions via FilmFreeway for the 2026 Loft Film Fest! We accept all kinds of films, all genres, all lengths, with a production year of 2025 or 2026. Features are 60 minutes or longer, shorts are less than 60 minutes long.
All films must be Tucson film festival premieres.

Submit now at https://filmfreeway.com/LoftFilmFest

Regular Deadline - June 27, 2026
Extended Deadline - July 18, 2026