The celebrated and groundbreaking Mexican arthouse theater and gastropub Cine Tonalá has launched a special crowdfunding campaign to be able to cover the payroll for the following months due to its temporary closure as a result of the pandemic.
With the risk of a permanent shuttering of its two locations in Mexico City and Tijuana—Cine Tonalá has a third outpost in Bogota, Colombia—the theater has put out a call to the independent film community to support them in keeping their 53 staff members.
Cine Tonalá was launched eight years ago with mission of supporting and giving voice to independent films that were overlooked by the multiplexes. The film theater had an adjacent restaurant and bar, that rapidly became a meeting point for the local film and arts community. In these past years, Cine Tonalá has screened over a thousand independent films, almost half of them Mexican productions.
Additionally, Cine Tonalá has played host to filmmakers such as Lucrecia Martell, John Waters, Leos Carax, Jonas Mekas, Arturo Ripstein, Amat Escalante and Luis Ospina, and has also hosted different film festivals including Ambulante, FICUNAM, Morelia and DocsMx.
The resources generated from the crowdfunding campaign will be used in their entirety to support our work team, which is made up of waiters, bartenders, cooks, administrative staff and cultural promoters. If you want to make a donation visit https://donadora.org/campanas/cine-tonala.
