This time last year, the film-loving farceur behind the Music Box Theatre’s beloved Twitter account—now restored to its former glory after a bogus several-week suspension due to supposed copyright infringement—replied to a tweet from a film fan in a conversation about Christopher Nolan: “Keep your fingers crossed that this is all over in time for TENET in July!”

This progress comes after a hellish year for exhibitors who rely on in-person screenings for most or all of their revenue. “Sadly we lost hundreds of thousands of dollars,” says Oestreich. “We had to let go of veteran staff who know the business, who know the job.” With the extended showtimes and the possibility of expanding their capacity in coming weeks or months, he says they’ll first look to hire back workers they let go, though it’s possible some will have moved on to other jobs. This is another theme among exhibitors—the first right of refusal for previously existing and even new positions being reserved for staff who had been laid off.

While other theaters have already or anticipate opening at reduced capacities, the Gene Siskel Film Center says they won’t—they can’t, really—open until they’re able to do so at full capacity. “We can’t make payroll and everything if we’re not at 100 percent,” says executive director Jean de St. Aubin. “We can’t cover all of our expenses.” The Film Center had been thinking about late July as a potential opening date but are reconsidering that—as many theaters likely are—as COVID-19 cases rise amidst the dreaded fourth wave. Still, she says that much of what they’ve learned this past year will continue even as the theater reopens, specifically referencing their virtual cinema, the Screen to Screen conversations, and their robust lecture series, which has brought such luminaries as critics Jonathan Rosenbaum and Ann Hornaday, programmer Sergio Mims, and filmmakers John Sayles and Jennifer Reeder to audiences across the country in the comfort and safety of their homes.

Smaller, independent venues have been largely sidelined this past year, with microcinemas such as the Nightingale Cinema and filmfront having ceased in-person screenings indefinitely. In addition to being a cinema, the Nightingale is also a residence currently occupied by three people. Its director, Emily Eddy, says that “it would feel complicated and a bit scary to invite the public into our living space,” a dilemma faced by many DIY venues where community members also live. The organizers behind filmfront, Malia Haines-Stewart and Alan Medina, who also run the bookshop Inga in the space, face similar conundrums but have embraced the respite during this era of tumultuousness. “[We’ve] given ourselves permission to take time off and let the project and ourselves rest during this transitional time,” says Haines-Stewart. “Since we’re not part of a larger organization or a ticket-selling/profit model, there isn’t necessarily the same urgency to reopen. In some ways we’re in a more flexible position, but also without the structure, there’s less support in a challenging time.” Both venues plan to pursue outdoor screenings going into the summer.

Along those lines, the Chicago Film Society—who, pre-pandemic, showed a variety of films on 16-millimeter, 35-millimeter, and 70-millimeter at Northeastern Illinois University and the Music Box Theatre—has taken this time to focus on a lot of things more tangentially related to film exhibition. They’ve released two issues of a zine, Infuriating Times, and started a projector loan program, which allows people to borrow projectors and films to project at home—there’s currently a two-month wait list. They’ve also gotten a new office space, where they’re storing many of the prints from their collection, and will be collaborating with the Metrograph in New York on a virtual guest program. They have an outdoor screening planned for early July with Comfort Film at Comfort Station, who themselves are planning for three months of open-air programming this summer, including collaborations with Sophia Wong Boccio from Asian Pop-Up Cinema and South Side Projections, as well as a continuation of their Silent Films and Loud Music series.