Durham's third movie theater will seat 60 people, open in July, and show Godzilla films alongside documentaries, by design.
Skin and Bones Theater is coming to 118 W. Parrish St., where film editor Jim Haverkamp and photographer Alex Maness spent three years turning a chance encounter into a venue. While filming a friend's band in the upper floors of the building, they noticed the empty first floor below and tracked down the landlord. The space is now under renovation.
The math behind the project is blunt: a city of 340,000 has the AMC at Southpoint and the Carolina Theatre. The Northgate Mall theater closed during COVID. Manbites Dog closed in 2018.
- The 60-seat flex space will screen independent films, documentaries, and host live performances, lectures, and readings.
- Haverkamp and Maness also run Shadowbox Studio, which they started 12 years ago and will keep operating separately after Skin and Bones opens.
- Haverkamp teaches in Duke's film department; the owners want to connect with the documentary scene around Duke's Center for Documentary Studies and the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.
- The name came from a skeleton prop sitting behind Haverkamp during a planning conversation, Maness said the concept was "skin and bones" and it stuck.
The programming won't be precious. "Jim and I totally love dumb stuff, too," Maness said. "It doesn't have to be all highbrow all the time." Haverkamp named Godzilla films and cartoons alongside independent cinema as part of the mix.
Haverkamp summed up the goal as "get back to some localism", a callback to when Durham creatives performed in empty warehouses and storefronts before rising rents pushed them out.
Shadowbox will continue hosting film screenings at its Club Boulevard location until Skin and Bones opens in July.