The Chauncey, along with two more well-known Iowa City buildings, went under the hammer at the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office auction on Tuesday, and there were no bidders for any of them. That means GreenState Credit Union still owns the Chauncey (404 E College St), Plaza Towers (221 E College St) and Park@201 (201 E […]
FilmScene – Chauncey
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Review: Ever dreamed of hiding in a store overnight? Documentary ‘Secret Mall Apartment’ makes space for the anarchist in all of us
I can’t speak for everyone, but if teenage me found out that there was a secret Playstation clubhouse in my local mall, with an access panel hidden over a toilet, I would have gone through the looking glass in a heartbeat. This is a proposition that 2024 documentary Secret Mall Apartment presents, with Providence, Rhode […]
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GreenState Credit Union forecloses on The Chauncey and other Moen properties in downtown Iowa City
GreenState Credit Union has foreclosed on one of Iowa City’s best-known buildings, The Chauncey, as well as some other significant properties owned by real estate developer Marc Moen and business partners. The properties will be sold off at a sheriff’s auction, the Corridor Business Journal (CBJ) reported Thursday. GreenState sued Moen and his associates on […]
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As ‘Oppenheimer’ drops, local cinemas focus in on nuclear films, Iowa’s atomic history
With the highly anticipated premiere of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer on the summer calendar, FilmScene staffer Lee Sailor decided to curate a Nuclear Movies series over a few weeks in July. The Iowa City cinema’s series typically last longer, but “we were slightly concerned about how many people would want to go see the world end […]
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Samuel D. Hunter, UI grad and playwright behind ‘The Whale,’ talks friendship with Brendan Fraser, writing ‘autofiction’ and falling in love in Iowa
Before The Whale became an Oscar-nominated film, playwright Samuel D. Hunter briefly believed the play had reached its pinnacle. “Having the show at one of my favorite theaters, Playwrights Horizons, here in the city, a 125-seat theater, was the top of the mountain,” Hunter, a 2007 graduate of the University of Iowa’s Playwrights Workshop, told […]
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Watch: Screenwriter and producer David Kajganich on adapting novels, cannibalism and Iowa City’s new film festival
For the first time in four years, screenwriter and Iowa Writers’ Workshop alum David Kajganich is back in Iowa City for the FilmScene premiere of his genre-bending, spine-tingling new work. Bones and All is the third adapted screenplay Kajganich has crafted for director Luca Guadagnino — audiences packed FilmScene during the 2018 Witching Hour Festival […]
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Grab the VCR — Everything is Terrible returns to Iowa City on March 12 with a family-friendly show
Remember the Before Times of 2018? It was a nearly mask-less era, when friends, acquaintances and strangers alike came together to watch performances from out-of-towners or locals. It was during this time that Everything is Terrible, the California-based art collective, brought last their traveling show, The Great Satan Tour, to Iowa City. It is an […]
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The 13th Iowa City Book Festival includes Bob Woodward, a celebration of Dostoevsky and more
Literature lovers should get ready to indulge in a week-long celebration of authors, readers and writing, as the 13th annual Iowa City Book Festival (ICBF) kicks off. This year’s festival runs from Monday, Oct. 18 to Sunday, Oct. 24, and unlike last year’s festival, which was entirely virtual because of the pandemic, it will have […]
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FilmScene to reopen theaters in time for ‘A Quiet Place Part II’
Within six months of their grand opening in the new Chauncey Building, FilmScene closed its doors in response to the pandemic. But after more than 14 months of private screenings, virtual screenings and Friday night concession pick-ups — and, last month, the debut of their outdoor cinema — the Iowa City nonprofit theater is ready […]
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‘Cats’ is back out of the bag as FilmScene hosts four special screenings
“You will believe,” promised the first trailer for Tom Hooper’s Cats, the film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s stage musical, itself adapted from T.S. Eliot’s collection of poems Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. There was something ominous, perhaps even mildly threatening about this tagline. What will we believe? That the strangest Broadway hit of all time would make a good movie?
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Q&A with Alex Gibney, Oscar-winning documentary director, after the Iowa premiere of ‘Citizen K’
Regarded as one of the most important documentarians of the last couple decades, Alex Gibney has focused his camera on con-artists and fallen heroes in films such as The Armstrong Lie, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief and The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley. His 2007 doc Taxi to the Dark Side
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Acclaimed filmmaker Charles Burnett to receive Cinema Savant award
On Saturday, Nov. 2 at the Chauncey, FilmScene will award renowned director and screenwriter Charles Burnett with the prestigious Iowa City 2019 Cinema Savant award. The event will be followed by a reception honoring Burnett and his oeuvre.
