Lights, Values, Action

While leading an impromptu tour of Amherst Cinema, Executive Director Yasmin Chin Eisenhauer ’94 points to an essential item in the basement-level supply room: a pile of 50-pound bags of popcorn kernels.

“This is the favorite of our school tours,” she says, flashing a quick, warm smile. And, with added toppings of nutritional yeast, or nooch, “it’s the thing our customers like the most at the concession stand.”

Uniquely flavored popcorn is part of the love language of Eisenhauer’s 17-year-old nonprofit cinema in Amherst, Massachusetts—not only as a top snack-bar item and a benefit of cinema membership, but also as a sign of the value the organization places on the shared experience of watching movies in a theater. 

When Eisenhauer took the helm of the cinema in the winter of 2021, during a peak in the COVID-19 pandemic, it wasn’t clear how or even whether those collective moments could be sustained.

“The business model was disrupted,” she says. “We shifted to online screenings, which were clunky, and we did private screenings for groups of five or fewer who were paying a suggested donation of $200 for a film experience.”

In one of her first decisions as head of the cinema, Eisenhauer convinced her team to eliminate private screenings and replace them with regularly priced small-group movie showings that were open to the public.

Although ticket sales took a temporary hit, “we saw a huge increase in donations because people were able to return and once again afford an encounter with a big-screen experience,” she says. “It reaffirmed their commitment and their understanding of the mission of the cinema—that it’s really something for the community.”

Eisenhauer’s notion of community is one that welcomes multiple interests and identities. The lineup for those first small-group screenings in 2021, for example, featured films spotlighting woman-identified and BIPOC actors, writers, and directors: Nomadland, Judas and the Black Messiah, and Minari. (The screenings all sold out within 24 hours of tickets going on sale.)

In choosing the 250 films the cinema screens annually, Eisenhauer’s team seeks out movies that highlight underrepresented voices.

“There’s a demand for looking at all of the different ways that we exist,” she says. “If you thin-slice our film programs on any given day or week, what you’ll find is we are very intentional about programming that meets and is of interest to many different demographics.”

In addition to championing diversity onscreen, Eisenhauer engages members of the community in film programming, says Jennifer Malkowski, associate professor of film and media studies at Smith, who helped plan last fall’s TransFormed series showcasing the creativity of transgender filmmakers.

“Yasmin wanted to use the resources she had at Amherst Cinema to support and uplift the local trans community,” Malkowski says. “She took the time to sit down with many trans people to gather their advice on how to program the series well, and she pulled many in to introduce films in the series or facilitate post-screening Q&As. The series was incredible—a weekly gathering place for stories about trans life that were authentic, beautiful, and joyful.”

Whether it’s spotlighting women in a film series on science or partnering with nonprofit organizations for Community Night film screenings about local issues, Eisenhauer is described by colleagues as someone who stays focused on who has been left out of the conversation and how she can bring them in.

Running an art-house movie theater wasn’t something Eisenhauer ever expected to be doing, and yet, she says, it’s where her life’s “paths have converged.”

GROWING UP IN NEW YORK CITY, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, Eisenhauer was surrounded by art, culture, and the lively oral traditions of her extended family. Her father, Maurice Chin, is a painter and sculptor who regularly took the family on outings, including to movies.

At Horace Mann School in the Bronx, Eisenhauer spent time in the photography lab, encountering the work of such artists as Gordon Parks and Carrie Mae Weems and learning “of the power not just to take photos but to use my art as a way of representing myself and my culture.”

As a first-generation student at Smith, she majored in sociology, made lasting friendships, and got to try her artistic and advocacy wings as a theater techie, a student Design for Diversity intern advising the admission office about inclusion, and a junior member of the board of directors of the Alumnae Association of Smith College.

Eisenhauer says she learned important lessons about women leaders at Smith. The Alumnae Association “was my first experience on a board,” she notes, “and entering that space, filled by these amazingly successful, talented women who came from all over the country and the world—and who sat there as board members and knitted—I thought, This is what leadership in a women-led 
organization looks like!”

Eisenhauer earned a master’s degree in educational communications and technology at New York University and worked as director of acquisitions and distribution for ABFF Ventures, a company promoting Black independent cinema. More recently, she was associate director for learning, research, and technology at Smith, where she led media education and technology initiatives at the college, including creating programming to support remote learning during the pandemic.

Eisenhauer’s Smith connections remain strong. Numerous professors and alums have been panelists for film programs at Amherst Cinema. This October, Smith President Sarah Willie-LeBreton helped curate a series featuring films written, directed by, or starring graduates of the five colleges.

WHEN EISENHAUER WAS HIRED TO LEAD THE CINEMA during a pandemic surge in 2021, not only were the movie screens dark, but the offices were empty of staff and the very future of the organization was a question mark.

“We were looking for someone to do what was pretty much an impossible job,” says Salman Hameed, Charles Taylor Professor of Integrated Science & Humanities at Hampshire College, who was chair of the cinema board at the time. “We needed someone who could not only step in and manage in a crisis but could also take the cinema out of that and into a brighter future.”

Hameed says board members could tell—even in her Zoom interview—that Eisenhauer was that person. “It was her ability for empathy,” he says. “It was clear in how she spoke about the responsibilities and the role that connects her to the staff.”

It was also clear that she shared the staff and board’s love for the collective experience of watching a film in a theater, Hameed says. “She supports maintaining the core things that we think of as a community-driven cinema.”

A longtime member of Amherst Cinema herself (“It was my landing spot when I moved here 10 years ago”), Eisenhauer says taking the helm of the movie house, located just eight miles across the Coolidge Bridge from Smith, was “a challenging career next step. But it was also incredibly rewarding to see that I could bring my whole self into this job.”

Her enthusiasm is palpable, whether she’s telling a visitor about the history of the 1926  theater building or leading marathon program-planning sessions with longtime staff.

At one such weekly meeting, Eisenhauer and programming team members Alex Hornbeck and George Myers gather around a table, laptops at the ready. The tabletop is covered with stickers and other souvenirs from independent film conferences they’ve recently attended, including Art House Convergence, where Eisenhauer serves on the board. (She also serves on the board of the Downtown Amherst Foundation, which aims to promote culture in the town’s central business district.)

Their discussion circles around choices for an upcoming experimental film series called Bellwether, a program on sustainable agriculture called Common Ground, a $5 Family Fun film, local media interviews, program after-parties, and their own favorite movies.

The meeting runs long but is never short on fun. The subject of popcorn comes up, as Development Manager Angela Combest joins the conversation to suggest a special “behind the scenes” event as a perk for cinema members with festive popcorn toppings. Curry flavor? Hot sauce? Extra nooch?

Colleagues say Eisenhauer has raised the profile of the cinema in an era when marketing studies show moviegoing is on the decline.

“She brings people in and cultivates a culture of collaboration and partnership,” says Minh Ly, associate director for assessment at Smith, who serves as vice president of the Amherst Cinema board. “She is driven by a deep sense of responsibility to the institution.”

Barton Byg, president and chair of the board, says that under Eisenhauer’s leadership,model among art-house cinemas.”

“One glance at the quarterly newsletter demonstrates why the variety and creativity of our programming stands out nationally, even in comparison to the offerings in major cities,” says Byg, who is professor emeritus of German and Scandinavian studies and film studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

In 2022, Amherst Cinema was chosen as one of only seven independent theaters—and the only movie house in the Northeast—to screen films from the prestigious Sundance Film Festival. The organization has also attracted new business sponsors, nonprofit partners, and federal and state grants to support its film education programs involving schoolchildren and college students.

Those connections are increasingly important, given continued competition from streaming services and the cost of keeping up with new film projection technology. (The cinema converted to digital projection in 2013 and upgraded to laser this year but still also shows films on old-school 35mm equipment.)

While national surveys show moviegoing audiences have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, Amherst Cinema’s ticket sales and theater attendance trends are, so far, going in the right direction. Colleagues and community partners say that’s in no small part due to Eisenhauer’s focus on the theater’s mission as a community resource.

Smith faculty member Malkowski says Eisenhauer has also remained committed to expanding the reach of the cinema community.

“Yasmin has consistently found ways to advance equity and inclusion while maintaining the financial bottom line of her business,” Malkowski says. “That’s a balance we too often hear cannot be achieved or requires the sacrifices of one of those elements (guess which one?!).”

For her part, Eisenhauer is upbeat about the future of Amherst Cinema.

“When the industry was broken as a result of the pandemic, it was an opportunity to examine the world—who is here and who’s not here,” she says. “It’s this idea of leading with your values.”

Those values include “remaining a place that’s for everyone,” she says, and offering not only quality films and unseen small-screen gems but also media literacy concepts to help people navigate a society that is bombarded with visual imagery and messaging.

For Eisenhauer, film is a lens for seeing people’s common humanity. “Movies are magical, movies are escapism, movies are important to who we are as people,” she says. “Movies are stories, and stories are how we make meaning of our world and our lives, our struggles and challenges, and all the beautiful things in between.”

What will ensure Amherst Cinema’s survival, Eisenhauer says, is remaining a place that the community values and wants to support.

For inspiration, she looks to her own theater’s screening rooms.

“A phenomenon that started happening post-pandemic is that at the end of a movie, people will clap and cheer,” Eisenhauer says. “It’s just people being happy. We’re in the business of  happiness, so that’s not a hard sell.” •

Barbara Solow is assistant director for news and strategic communications at Smith.