Free outdoor movie nights in Villisca through October

The Villisca community is celebrating a new interactive event for residents in and outside of the community.
On July 1, during the Villisca community’s Heritage Days celebration, a new mural was unveiled that will be used on a monthly basis during warmer weather for hosting outdoor films. Lori Burton is one of the people who helped organize and bring the project to fruition. She described how the idea for the outdoor theater mural screen came about.
“My husband, Alex, listened to a lot of podcasts and different things about community development, and they tipped him off to this little town in Parsons, Kan. It had a parking lot downtown that wasn’t being used for anything, and a building that wasn’t being used, and they painted a drive-in theater. The design looks like a bunch of old cars parked, and then they painted this big screen, and they used that parking lot for a little drive-in theater for their downtown community, and they’re doing free movies,” explained Burton.
Burton said the Parsons design fit an idea that the Villisca community members had considered for the last few years of offering free movies.
“We had thought we’d get like a blow-up screen, maybe do it in the park or something like that, but when Alex saw that idea, he thought, Villisca has got some empty spaces that could be painted,” advised Burton. “Then it kind of evolved from there to be, we wanted it to kind of reminiscent of the Rialto Theater that everyone has kind of missed and was very sad to see torn down. That image of the old marquee was something that had been for so long the iconic thing when you were driving downtown in Villisca. It was unique and different than just any other small town downtown.”
To advance the idea further, Burton said they agreed on a location and contact the building owners, Joe and Rhi Cooney, about the project.
“They have a couple different businesses in town, and they use one building just for storage for their port-a-potty businesses, Joe’s Portables. After we told them our idea, they said, we could can paint it, and do whatever we wanted to do with it. It faces a parking lot that has been the office space for the Advent Christian Church. So we also approached them about using the parking lot for seating, and said we could set up on their parking lot anytime we want. The location is also right next door to the Rialto Café, which had named themselves after the Rialto when they took ownership a few years ago. So that just kind of fell into place,” Burton stated.
With the location chosen and permissions established, Burton said the next step was getting equipment.
“We applied for some grants and we got a grant from the Montgomery County Foundation that paid for the projector, a Poet Biorefining Community Impact grant that paid for the sound system, and then we went back to Paint Iowa Beautiful, which is the same grant we had applied for last year when we did the mural with the bees and the flowers. They awarded us another grant for the paint. So we got pretty much all of the necessities covered right there. Then I used the projector we used for last year’s mural and projected the image of the Rialto up there and painted it.”
While in the process of doing the painting, Burton said she picked up some additional volunteer help.
“I was there painting one day, and as people do in a small town, they stop by and start talking to you. One neighbor, Darryl Kuzemko, stopped by and he said, ‘oh, this is great. What are you doing? Can I help?’ I said, ‘oh, well, actually there’s this hole in the wall where a window air conditioner used to be. Do you know anything about putting in brick so we could make it look like it should?’ It was just a piece of plywood covering it up. He said he could do that, and he came back an hour later and started patching up the hole,” commented Burton. “Another day, another Villisca graduate and resident, Anthony Pond stopped by and asked what was going on, then offered to paint some other thing. He’s an artist, and he asked if we wanted a further mural design beyond the Rialto. I was happy to have him add to it, and we passed onto him some artistic liberty.”
As part of his work, Pond added something that the Villisca residents were happy to see.
“Anthony did a recreation of some graffiti that was on the original Rialto. On the south side of the Rialto building there was some numbered graffiti, and the sentence “Karla Babe.” I don’t know who Carla is, but I remembered it from my childhood and it’s funny. So I said, I think it’d be really funny if on this new wall, you could somewhere sneak in Karla Babe. And he made it look exactly like the old window it was on. It’s truly amazing that simple thing is something the community rallied around and are pleased that we brought along to the mural,” Burton said. “I just sort of painted by number with the projection. Anthony though has really gone above and beyond to make the mural much more decorative.”
To begin the movie showing experience, Burton said they took a vote on the first film to be screened, and it was the recent film “Hoppers” that was selected.
“The elementary kids were the ones who ended up choosing it, and the first free movie night went over really well. We had approximately 80 people attend. With the sun setting so late, we couldn’t start the film until shortly after 9 p.m. With this being a movie intended for kids who would normally be in bed by 9, I thought having 80 people was fantastic. As we move later into the year, we’ll get to start a little bit earlier, and our start times will get even more reasonable,” advised Burton.
The next free movie night will be “Field of Dreams” at 8:30 p.m. Aug. 1; “School of Rock” at 8 p.m. on Sept. 6; “Toy Story 5” at 7 p.m. on Oct. 1, and plans call for the end of the free screening season on Halloween night with a showing of “Hocus Pocus” at 7 p.m.  Burton said all the films are available by special arrangement.
“We’re getting the movies from Swank Films. They specifically do licensing for groups or organizations that are not actual brick and mortar theaters. You can charge for the films if you license through Swank, but they mainly get movies for fundraisers or just free community events.”
Burton said that they’ve been able to get every movie they wanted through Swank except one, and the unavailable film was quite surprising.
“The only film that we’ve wanted to get that they said you can’t get is “The Sandlot.” We had a lot of people that requested it for one of the summer shows, but when I requested it, the people from Swank told me that theaters are still making so much money licensed like to show it that they won’t license it to non-admission event or organization like ours,” explained Burton. “So barring that, we went with “Field of Dreams” for our next showing. The only other thing we have to be aware of is that we can’t compete with a theater in our same market by showing a film that a movie theater in our market is showing, but it doesn’t seem like we’d ever be at risk for a conflict,” commented Burton.
 Also, to help keep the costs in check and the event free, Burton said they are seeking business partners to sponsor the films.
‘We had people right away step up and say they would cover a movie. The first one was the Methodist Church in Villisca, which sponsored “Hoppers” on July 1. Farm Credit Services in Red Oak is sponsoring the August showing of “Field of Dreams.” We have five shows on tap for this year, but we are looking at the potential of having a sixth showing as part of our indoors Christmas event,” stated Burton. “With the final showing being Oct. 31, that can be really up in the air as far as weather. Sometimes it’s still in the 70s, sometimes it’s cold. If it’s cold, we’ll have it at the Villisca Middle School or at the Villisca fire Department building.”
Organiations that sponsor the movies are welcomed to provide concessions and keep the funds, but if the sponsors don’t want to provide food, Burton said they’ll have free popcorn and water available, and attendees can also get some food at the Rialto Café prior to the films starting.
Feedback for the first film was overwhelmingly positive, and drew quite a cross section of people.
“It was interesting to see who came to the movie. Since it was a kids movie, I figured it would just bring in a bunch of kids, but there were people my parents’ age and older that, I doubt would have never gone to see this movie in a theater. Because it was an event, because it was something in the community it drew a lot of people,” Burton said. ‘People drove their golf carts down, it was a great way to come and meet up with people you knew and have a good time.”
Now that the equipment is purchased and the painting is done, Burton said they may start the next season a little sooner.
“We mainly kicked off the event in July because I teach and I needed time between school getting out and the first one to get the mural painted. I didn’t want to guarantee that I’d have the mural done by June. Also, when the grants came in, we didn’t get the equipment until like mid-June. so we also wanted time to test it out. I think next year, we would definitely start earlier and then do it throughout basically the fair weather months. May is a toss up for good weather, but June is usually pretty nice. It’s also hard when you have to wait for the sun to set, because in a month like July, it’s a long wait. Thankfully the app on my phone gives me exact sunset times. I tried it out and it was very accurate,” Burton advised.
While they are having sponsors for the movies, Burton said individuals who wish to donate are welcome to do so.
“They can always just donate to the betterment and it would go to any of these kinds of events. We also have betterment members, of course, and they can be annual members for a fee. As for donations, unless someone specifically says, ‘I want it to go toward fireworks or the movies or the foam party or whatever,’ it’s place in our general fund and then our board votes on it before we spend money,” stated Burton. “However, they’re welcome to say, ‘I’d like to sponsor a movie or partially sponsor a movie’ if they would like it to go to that. Otherwise, we are always kind of looking at what’s the next thing that the community needs that isn’t specifically handled? There’s some things that fall under private homeowners and there’s other things that are just sort of left in limbo and that’s where we can fill in that gap.”
To learn more about the Villisca Community Betterment Association, or to donate, visit villiscabetterment.com, or visit facebook.com/VCBAIA.