Magical miniature theatre showcases short films in East Vancouver hole-in-the-wall

The miniature Vodville Theatre can be found in a window on the outside of East Vancouver's Hack Space. Courtesy: Vodville Theatre)

For cinephiles living in Vancouver, there’s no shortage of unique movie-watching experiences. There are art-house, independent, and even drive-in theatres, but few can lay claim to being small but mighty in the same way the newest kid on the block can.

The East Van Vodville Theatre, so inconspicuous that you may even miss it at first glance, is a miniature, hole-in-the-wall cinema located on the facade of East Vancouver’s non-profit workshop, the Vancouver Hack Space.

It is nestled within a window on the Venables Street building, the fourth from the alley, to be precise, and runs 24/7. Film listings comprise a mixture of cult classics, favourites of its creators, submissions from local artists, and requests from locals.

“We’re getting a lot of requests for Charlie Chaplin,” says Janet Mader, who built the petite picture house in collaboration with partner David Bynoe last year.

Bynoe says the two are not pitching themselves as film buffs or people who are in a position to advise others on what they should be viewing. The project is a lighthearted one that has fun, accessible films as its focus. In the first week of December the theatre had been screening a series of cat videos, while another week was dedicated to clips of nail-biting dangerous stunts.

“It’s just whatever is interesting to us at the time, and we’re open to the community, too. If they have suggestions or things they’re interested in, we’re happy to show that stuff,” says Bynoe.

The duo laud the volunteer-run Hack Space for providing them with the space and tools to be able to bring such a project to light, although equally as deserving of the credit is, undeniably, the duo’s extensive and impressive skillset. Both are special effects technicians, with Bynoe’s resume spanning jobs like creating fire, wind, and smoke in front of the film camera to building puppets off of it, while Mader’s work history also includes theatre and model building.

Both have a penchant for teeny-tiny things and both, they explain, love history.

The miniature film house is designed to pay homage to the original Vancouver Pantages, an iconic vaudeville and film theatre built in 1907 in the Downtown Eastside.

The theatre, which showed everything from comedy and dance shows to obscure animal acts, was converted to a movie theatre in 1920. It closed in 1994 and was demolished in 2011 to make way for a housing project, much to the dismay of locals and heritage advocates.

Over the year-long course of the little cinema’s creation, the two pored over old photographs of the interior and exterior of the building to make the dinky dupe as like the original as they could.

There may have been “some artistic license” taken here and there, admits Mader, as the two didn’t want to be “too persnickety on the details”, but anyone who had the pleasure of once stepping into the original will recognize its discerning features in its pint-sized counterpart.

Even the theatre’s name, ‘Vodville’ as opposed to vaudeville, is a nod to the spelling of the original sign that hung above the building’s front entrance in the 1930s. It was likely misspelt, explains Bynoe, as a way to save on expensive lettering.

Throughout the entire creation process and ever since the theatre first opened in December last year, the project has received “overwhelming support” from the community, beams Bynoe.

The support is particularly strong from the local kids, who, when travelling home from the nearby schools, can be seen sprinting across the crosswalk and making a beeline for the Vodville just to see who can hit the play button first.

“We get a lot of regulars,” laughs Mader.

With it “more important than ever” right now for there to be connection among the community, Mader says it’s been heartwarming to see locals come together over stories they love, and have even created themselves.

In its two months of existence the theatre has already undergone several updates.

Two viewing holes had to be added to the first after Mader and Bynoe witnessed kids regularly bickering over whose turn it was to peek in and take a look. Two stair-like stumps and a railing have also been added to ensure the theatre is accessible to all, especially to the little ones who need a boost to reach its height.

Regulars will have also noticed that the miniature seats have started being filled with miniature cinemagoers. Mader says viewers can expect to see recognizable film characters settling in for the movies. So far they include Fozzie bear, seated, naturally, in the front row, Studio Ghibli’s Totoro with his umbrella, and fellow Muppets icons Statler and Waldorf.

There’s even talk of other artists in the area making their own editions in different places around the city, a concept which Mader and Bynoe say they would “love to see” come to fruition in the near future.