Kip Kelly’s gone to the movies. The “former second-rate DJ” turned marketing professional has logged eight months as the Beverly Theater’s chief experience officer, bringing arthouse and revival cinema—as well as live music and author events—to Downtown’s newest and most versatile entertainment space.

Following a blockbuster October — during which the Beverly screened a series of classic horror movies to packed houses—Kelly is energized and eager to take on even more ambitious programming challenges. He invited the Weekly to take a seat in the Beverly’s auditorium to talk about its story, so far.

So much for objectivity: I love this theater. I’m very happy that it’s here.

I’m glad you’re getting a kick out of it. Beverly [Rogers], she did it right. I’m glad it’s here, too.

Opening a new arthouse theater in the streaming era was a gamble, but I think it’s catching on.

I feel like it is, too. And I’m really proud of my team. We don’t have VPs and directors; we have a solid group of film and theatrical students, and we’re trying to compete at an industry level. I want to put our program against anything in the country.

We’ve managed to grow exponentially in terms of what we’re able to do with this room, what we’re able to book and the types of things we can do. You know, when we did [music film series] Showchella in April, I was like, “How are we going to do 20 titles a month?” Then, in October, we did 49 titles. That all happens right here; that’s a lot of paperwork, a lot of file management, content delivery and making sure everything works in the booking and the showtimes. The team is kicking ass.

Lots of locals visited the Beverly in October for your program of suspense and horror films. That must’ve felt good.

Well, horror movies make money; we didn’t invent that part of it. But it did feel good. It’s interesting for a movie theater to feel electric; those two words don’t really go together. For a movie theater to feel electric almost every day of the month was pretty cool. It felt like we were tapping into some sort of zeitgeist, that we had a symbiotic relationship with the community. People were dressing up [for screenings]! We’re going to do that again, and we’re going to do it bigger next year.

Are you beginning to see repeat business? People coming to see Scream and The Shining, then coming back to see a new indie film they don’t know because they liked the experience?

Oh, yeah. There are film purists out there. They’re important to us because they help educate the city on some of the things that we’re playing. I’ve always said that if you’re explaining, you’re losing, so it’s tough to be the first to break some of these films.

We show a lot of movies people have never heard of. But we have our tribes for concerts, for literary stuff, for films. We’re trying to identify those people for each showtime and trying to figure out how we can hit critical mass with them. But we’re not going to be the ones who suddenly get people to want to watch indie films every day of the week. It’s more about creating a connection with that type of stuff. These [films] are slow burns, they’re romances, they’re important stories that haven’t been told. They’re more impactful, more long-lasting. Once you have an indie film lover, I think you have that person for life.

The other night I came to see Victimas del Pecado [a Mexican film noir from 1950] and I ran into several friends coming out of [Wim Wenders’ 1987 film] Wings of Desire. It was a first visit to the Beverly for all of them.

We had a cool show in here last night, with [Venezulan band] Rawayana. There was almost 300 people here, and 100% of them had not been here before. Previously, Rawayana would not have played this market; they would have skipped it. Red Leather, who we had last week, was also great; he also would have skipped this market. It’s not because they don’t love Vegas; it’s because there was not a house where they could get in front of their Vegas fans.

The indie concerts have been great for us, but we’re also programming film, and then there’s the literary stuff we do with Writer’s Block. This is really a discovery venue for all three of those things. The thread that holds them all together is indie voices and indie spirit. This is your house to discover Rawayana, to discover Kim Foster talking about her new book, to discover Wim Wenders in 4K. Making those introductions is a cool thing this venue does for the city.

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