The West Newton Cinema Foundation, a nonprofit attempting to save the West Newton Cinema from demolition, announced Sunday a $5.2 million donation from an anonymous donor to help fund the Foundation’s acquisition of the theater, and to support necessary renovations and restorations.
The gift, split in two parts, will put $3.2 million toward the purchase of the theater and an additional contribution of up to $2 million in matching funds to incentivize support from other donors. The Foundation’s next step is to raise an additional $2 million in gifts that will be matched.
“People just stepped up,” said David Bramante, the previous co-owner and current operator of the historic theater, which dates back to 1937. “People stepped forward and said they were interested and [asked] how they could participate, would there be a board, could they be on the board, and it turned into a really stellar group of people.”
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When Bramante first purchased the West Newton Cinema in 1978 with his brother, Jim Bramante, he thought it would be a relatively simple business to operate — “open up in the night, make a little popcorn, and show a few movies,” he said by phone. But, like any business, it became a “very involved” operation that “consumed” his life.
Over the decades, Bramante, a film lover who worked behind the counter at concessions, watched Newton families fall in love with the cinema.
So when Bramante had to sell the theater in August 2022 after ticket sales and attendance fell during the COVID-19 pandemic, he felt he had to try to save it and struck a deal with Mark Development, a local real estate developer, that gave the community until Aug. 10, 2024 to form a nonprofit to rescue the theater from demolition.
The Foundation is tasked with raising a total of $14 million: $5.6 million to purchase the theater, $4.4 million for renovations and restorations, and another $4 million toward endowed funds for facility care and programming, according to Elizabeth Heilig, president of the West Newton Cinema Foundation.
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“We really feel that the theater has a lot to offer the entire Greater Boston area to add to the arts and culture scene to revitalize this corner of Newton and bring more foot traffic for local businesses,” she said in a recent interview with the Globe.
The agreement, Bramante said, was “unusual,” but making it a reality seemed possible. He pointed to the Coolidge Corner Theatre, which adopted a nonprofit model in 1989, as an example of a grassroots initiative that saved a beloved community theater from demolition in its “11th hour.”
“The people who bought [West Newton Cinema], Mark Development, were open to the idea” of saving the theater, Bramante said. “They live in Newton themselves, and they recognized the significance.”
The West Newton Cinema Foundation was organized by Newton residents at the end of 2022 and kicked off a two-phase capital fundraising campaign in April 2023 to meet the goal.
The Foundation is a completely volunteer-based effort to save the theater and transform it into a community space.
“It’s not that often that we get to work on a project that has this level of positive goodwill and community involvement,” said Heilig, a West Newton resident, who learned about the effort on her way to see “The Fabelmans” at the cinema earlier this year with her daughter.
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Lynne Pepall, a professor emerita at Tufts University, has lived in Newton since 1989 and joined the board as treasurer in the fall of 2022. Pepall, alongside board member J.B. Sloan, has been working to secure programming for the theater, bringing in local arts and culture groups to hold events and spread awareness of the theater’s plight.
“This is very much a working board. It’s not a board that sits back and just writes checks,” she said.
Both Pepall and Sloan pointed to a collaboration with CinemaKidz at the beginning of the year during the 15-day Newton teachers strike as an example of a successful community partnership. The theater gave parents the option to drop their children off at the West Newton Cinema for a day of programming. According to Sloan, the events sold out with less than 24 hours’ notice.
Now, as West Newton Cinema’s future looks brighter, Bramante is expecting to step aside and allow the Foundation to become a permanent operating fixture of the theater. Sloan, who has lived in West Newton for years, emphasized how passionate the community is about saving it.
Talking about the theater, people inevitably “also want to share their stories and experiences,” he said, adding that just recently, “I was at the field watching youth sports, and I’m talking to a woman and she was like, ‘I’m gonna cry if you can’t save that place.’”
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“The full mission is not just a $14 million campaign goal — it goes beyond buying the cinema and refurbishing it,” Sloan added, emphasizing the importance of sustaining the theater for the long term. “We’re getting close to just the first step along that path, but this is a bigger, longer campaign.”
Adri Pray can be reached at adri.pray@globe.com. Follow her @adriprayy.