Bloomington’s Cicada Cinema has hosted pop-up movie showings for the past 10 years around town at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, the Orbit Room and other bars or restaurants, but soon that will change. The nonprofit, volunteer-run group has recently purchased a commercial space to open a permanent theater, which they announced in June on their Instagram.
The location at 615 N. Fairview St. will feature around 70 seats, a concession stand and a small lobby. The theater will have cinema-quality projection and sound. The venue will also include VHS and laserdisc capabilities.
Something else included in the new theater that Cicada Cinema board treasurer Liz Sullivan thinks is especially exciting is their live music PA system which will allow them to have live scores performed alongside select movies.
This is something the organization has done before at a September 2025 pop-up at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater. The event featured Canadian musician and composer Claire Rousay as she performed her reimagined score of the old Slavic animation “The Bloody Lady” alongside a viewing of the film.
While the permanent theater will be new to Bloomington, Cicada Cinema isn’t new to the community. Since their first screening Oct. 31, 2016, Cicada has been providing Bloomington with underground movie screenings.
The cinema started off by screening movies at the now-closed venue The Void, a multi-use art space. After the space closed in 2017, Cicada started having pop-up screenings at any place that would host them, like the Hopscotch Coffee, Far Center for Contemporary Arts or other bars, restaurants and parks.
In the past few years, the cinema has aimed to show around two movies a week. However, Sullivan said that with their pop-up model this hasn’t always been sustainable, and they haven’t been able to do as many screenings as they wanted.
With a permanent theater, they will now be able to have multiple showings of the same movies, like big box theaters would. Sullivan also hopes that a permanent theater will become a community space for people to get to know each other and talk about movies.
Getting the community together and bringing back communal moviegoing has been one of the goals of Cicada Cinema, according to Sullivan.
“I loved when people wanted to hang out after and talk about the movie, or just get to know each other,” Sullivan said. “We couldn’t facilitate that when we were in other people’s spaces.”
They are also dedicated to bringing under-screened films to Bloomington, like “Re-Animator,” a 1985 sci-fi horror film that they showed July 15 at the Orbit Room for their 300th screening.
Sullivan said that they try to show movies that feel a little out of the ordinary and don’t always make it to big-box movie theaters.
This is especially important to film student and vice president of the IU student cinema guild junior Erin Richard because film students, like her, are all small indie filmmakers in the beginning, she said.
“We’re all starting out as indie filmmakers and kind of making our way up in the industry, and what better way to do that than supporting each other and giving back to the smaller communities,” Richard said.
Richard thinks that seeing smaller films like the ones Cicada shows can help people gain a new perspective on how much can be done with a small budget. She also loves seeing how experimental these kinds of films can be without big studios calling the shots.
An additional goal of the new permanent theater is to bring in audiences of all ages. Sullivan said that with the pop-up shows primarily being held at bars and cafes it was hard to include all ages at many of their screenings.
The permanent theater is currently in the buildout stage with a lot of painting and framing starting. They had an open house on June 27 where those interested could get a peek inside to see the progress and goals of the theater.
“We want to have some transparency around how this process goes,” Sullivan said.
While they are still in the process of building, Sullivan said that the organization plans to have the theater open by late September or early August, and they are currently fundraising to make that happen.
“I really, really hope that people come to our space and feel excited and understood by what they see on the screen and meet like-minded people as well as just seeing great art,” Sullivan said.
