Frank Lee Almost his entire life is spent in the film cinemas. At the age of 70, after a long career as an independent theater operator in San Francisco, he and his wife and co-owner, lida, marina and president are looking to sell the theaters, who oversee them since the early 2000s. But he says that the film’s experience should not end.
Lee wants to see these two theaters continuing as a film theater. ”
He says that he will be saddened by moving away from theaters, which both are on Chestnut Street in Marina district and Lee Neberhood Theater are part of the business, but this is the right moment for a new owner.
“I think it’s about time. After 60 years in business, it can be a good opportunity right now. And things are seen above,” Lee said Diversity“I think the schedule released this year hopes that pre-Covid may return normally.”
Ki lobby Marina Theater In San Francisco.
Courtesy of Frank Lee
Lease has operated four-screen presidio since 2004 and two-screen marina since 2008.
“The neighborhood needs these two theaters, obviously,” Lee said.
His first successful theater was a two -star 4 star theater in Richmond district, which he had gone since 1992 until he sold it in 2021.
Lease will overtake the wealth of community history in theaters. They have already been part of curating film culture in San Francisco, especially in the 1990s and early 2000s, when they programmed Asian cinema. He even organized a dedicated Asian Film Festival in 4 Stars.
The festival will show various works of Ang Lee’s “The Wedding Banquet,” The Red Laaint of Jhang Yimau, “Park Chan-Wook’s” Sympathy for Mr. Vengans, “Bong June Ho’s” Baking Dogs Never Bite “and Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Philips, Hurc, Hurc, Hurc, Hurc, Hark, will be shown. Takashi Mike participated in the festival when it showed his film, “Dead or Alave”.
“We were showing some very good products of all these Asian countries,” Lee said.
At the time, Lee continued on an exercise shared with his father, who worked in both the Asian films around 1964–1987 and worked in the screen. “I helped a lot, grew up with hand in hand, business,” Lee said.
His father, Frank Lee Senior, had one in theaters across the US and Toronto, serving the local Chintown neighborhood in his cities on a large scale – “Wherever Chintown was, he had a theater,” Lee said. His theaters consisted of Bella Union Theater in San Francisco; Pre -cinema in Los Angeles and Europa (before it was new beavori); 55th Saint in New York, Playhouse and Canal Cinema and College Theater in Toronto.
Frank Lee Senior. During a period, these places were operating when Chinese language cinemas Were popular Cultural hub For Chinese immigrant communities. He was also due to some Asian films, even reached America
Born and raised in Chenatown, San Francisco, Lee recalled to attend the San Francisco International Film Festival as a 9-year-old child, with his father Frank Lee Senior, he watched a Hong Kong Studio Brothers film. Frank Lee Senior, A Civil Engineer and Radio maker, then got a three -year deal with Shaw Brothers to distribute his films in America
Lee says that his father thought, “How is there any (is) displays it?” He was performing only the old Hong Kong’s black-end-white films.
Films were also an unconventional option as they were in Mandarin, when Cantonies was more commonly spoken in the US, according to Lee. “He received great support from New York Media, San Francisco Media and LA Media, especially those days newspapers. He really supported films, and he reviewed every film, which he displayed, that he had brought from Hong Kong,” Lee said.
Frank Lee Senior made her debut with Hong Kong’s films, then went to Taiwan’s films before looping back to Hong Kong Cinema. “There were about five or six distributors in this country who had been fighting for films outside Hong Kong and Taiwan for 20 years. So my father was one of the leading people,” Lee said.
“We (in those days will buy the rights of films in Taiwan and over 50 screens a day, distributed in the 70s and early 80s,” Lee said.
Courtesy of Frank Lee
Lee says his father shut down his film business in the late 80s, as the home video became more widespread. During the epidemic, Lee sent film prints to the film archives in Hong Kong and Taiwan by the operation of his father. Lee’s own focus on programming Asian films ended after the 2000s as the competition within that niche grew. But he is proud that he and his father fulfilled: “I would say that he is a pioneer in Asian films and introduced the non-ASian audience in the 60s. Then I continued it in the early 90s.”
These days, he and his wife show an array of films. Comedy and female audience-oriented films do especially well, but theater also shows a mixture of commercial, Oscar-namine and art films. Lease rented the auditorium for personal programs such as birthday parties, corporate events and screen actor guild screening. Theater space is used for funding screening in local schools. San Francisco International Film Festival used both theaters last April.
The exterior of the Marina Theater in San Francisco.
Courtesy of Frank Lee
Lee says that there is not much competition with other theaters. “On the west side, where we are, we are too much, only six-pixes that exist right now,” he said. “We can only like anything in theaters in theaters in that region.”
He said that Marina and Presidio could develop to serve the cuisine tastes of the city along with the experience of theater. “We see an opportunity here where some operators want to come in and eat food,” he said.
Marina has been allowed by the city to establish a food kitchen. While the presidio has no application in tasks for a similar permit, Lee said that both theaters have a normal blueprint to connect dine-in elements, if a new owner wants to pursue that option, or even one of the theater wants to operate a ghost kitchen, to serve food to another. Lee has described the Chestnut Street Area as a “Foody Area”: ​​”Any new restaurant is open, it is unprecedented, it is a phenomenon.”
The couple, who have two sons working as doctors, are looking to retire and talk to potential buyers this year.
As he and his wife prepare to let Marina and the presidio go, Lee said that his legacy as San Francisco Theater operators would be about his contribution to the local film scene.
The theater business includes obstacles like epidemic in their time, as well as Legal battle In the 2000s, to catch 4 stars facing eviction from property owners. The lease received community support, in which thousands of people sign a petition to save the theater.
He said, “Many people remember us in this way-Swatantra, hands-hand, take a lot of opportunities in the fourth hour, showing many things that people do not show,” he said.
