By Melissa Siig

When my husband and I opened the Tahoe Art Haus & Cinema in Tahoe City 10 years ago, we were trying to fill a void. While a movie theater had been in that location for decades, it was run down and neglected; as such, the community didn’t frequent the old Cobblestone Cinema that much. In Tahoe-Truckee, with its plethora of mountains and lakes and trails, you can recreate all day long, but if the weather is bad and you are looking for diverse film experiences, it can be hard to find.

Our goal with the Art Haus was to create a vibrant, community gathering place that would show major motion pictures as well as local and independent films, a place that would spark conversation and bring people together. I am proud to say that over the last decade we have succeeded in doing that for the North Shore of Tahoe. But soon after we opened, we realized that another void remained: Truckee, with its larger population, also desperately needed a theater.

Nadia Gill had noticed the same need in Truckee. In 2010, she and her husband, Dominic Gill, founded Encompass Films, which specializes in short documentaries and branded content for the outdoor industry. After they moved from LA to Truckee in 2020, Nadia soon realized there was no cohesive film community in the area.

Noting that Western Nevada County is home to both the Nevada City Film Festival, known as “the Sundance of the Sierra,” and Wild & Scenic Film Festival, which draws upwards of 7,000 visitors each February and tours nationally year-round, Nadia said: “In Truckee so much is tilted in the outdoor direction. With film, we could foster a more rounded culture, one that is less dependent on the outdoors.”

Nadia points to Telluride, a tiny mountain town with a population a fifth of Truckee’s, that annually puts on two nationally known film festivals, Mountainfilm Fest and the Telluride Film Festival.

“I look at Telluride and they have gotten their community to tap into it,” she said. “People who support it are philanthropists or first and second homeowners who come together and see the value of film to the community. Let’s create something like that here!”

Nadia’s dream is not only to establish a film collective that can bring local filmmakers together and more art house movies to Truckee (she recently registered a nonprofit, Bristlecone Film Collective, for that purpose), but she also wants to create a winter screening series. Unlike the typical film festivals that come through Truckee, which focus on the outdoors, she would like to share with audiences a wider variety of indie films that have premiered at Sundance Film Festival or South by Southwest.

The biggest issue, however, is that there is no quality space to show movies in Truckee. The default is the original historic Elementary School, since renovated by Truckee-Donner Recreation & Park District to accommodate a mix of community programming. This building has limitations: it was not designed as a movie theater and offers an inferior experience without dedicated seating.

In 2019, my husband and I were given approval from the Town to build a three-screen movie theater, the Truckee Art Haus & Cinema, in the Railyard District. Unfortunately, between the cost of traffic mitigation fees and the COVID-19 pandemic, we were unable to secure the funding to move forward.

We share Nadia’s dream of fostering culture and film in Truckee, and would love nothing more than to bring a movie theater to the Town of Truckee. But we can’t do it alone.

In the meantime, the Town of Truckee is recognizing the need to reignite conversations around development opportunities for a community theater as part of the Truckee Railyard Master Plan. A committee has been formed, including the Truckee Cultural District, to consider options with surrounding development projects and to identify venue gaps within the arts community and local nonprofit sector. Though it will take time and a lot of effort from an inspired pool on the part of local filmmakers, progress is being made. As Nadia said, “This is where gathering the whole film community comes into play … We want to be a beacon to gather more members of the community.”

For more information about Truckee-based Encompass Films, visit encompassfilms.com.