Art House Theater Day set for Saturday

You know about the annual Record Store Day, right? It’s that one day of the year -- usually a Saturday in April -- when you’re supposed to support and patronize your local indepedently owned record store because, yes, they still do exist, iTunes be damned.

Now, there’s Art House Theater Day when you’re supposed to support and patronize your local independently owned art house movie theater because, yes, they still do exist, Netflix be damned.

The first Art House Theater Day is set for this Saturday, Sept. 24. Around 200 theaters across the U.S., Canada and Australia are participating, including three in North Texas, and they will have special programs, some of which will only be seen on this particular day.

According to the organizers’ web site, “Art House Theater Day celebrates the legacy of independent theaters as advocates for cinema arts. In an age where media has become more digital than tangible, more solitary than social, art house theaters remain the physical spaces where film lovers congregate and connect with intrepid, creative filmmaking. They are the beating heart for new and exciting cinema that is shaping the future of the medium.”

Area theaters participating include the Texas Theatre in Dallas and the Alamo Drafthouses in Dallas and Richardson.

Programming at the Texas features: The Beatles documentary, Eight Days a Week; a restored version of Time Bandits (followed by a DJ set from DJ Evil), a screening of the documentary Danny Says with the filmmaker; and a screening of the animated Belgian film A Town Called Panic.

The Dallas Alamo Drafthouse is showing Phantasm with a livestream Q&A as well as Mel Brook’s 1967 classic The Producers starring Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel. The Richardson Drafthouse is showing Phantasm and the accompanying livestream.

For more information, go to www.arthousetheaterday.org.

This story was originally published September 19, 2016 at 4:23 PM with the headline "Art House Theater Day set for Saturday."