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AFI Silver Theatre presents annual Silverdocs festival, June 15-22

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The 1,100-seat Silver Theatre opened in 1938. Well-known cinema-house architect John Eberson designed the theater in the Art-Moderne style (an offshoot of Art Deco) during the later stages of his career. Eberson also designed the Bethesda Theatre, which opened four months earlier in 1938.

Montgomery County acquired the Silver Theatre in 1996 following a long struggle by the Art Deco Society of Washington to save the theater from demolition. Two years later, the county reached an agreement with AFI to take over the property and restore it.

Three theaters
A $20-million renovation project that lasted five years transformed the Silver Theatre into a three-theater complex. The main theater (in the same space as the original) now has 400 seats. Two additional screening rooms with stadium-style seating – one that accommodates 70 viewers and another that seats 200 – were constructed as part of a 32,000-sq.-ft. addition that also includes exhibition and meeting space.

When AFI moved its base of operations from the Kennedy Center to Silver Spring, there were many who could not see the rationale, Barry says. The old Silver Theatre was on a "rundown corner" in an area where the commercial landscape had collapsed, he adds. "There was nobody here at all."

That's not the case today. The AFI Silver Theatre is a major element in downtown Silver Spring's vibrant arts and entertainment district – established in 2002 as one of the first four A&E districts in the state.

"Local government officials saw the value of using the arts as an anchor for a major revitalization effort," Barry says. "AFI found this vision to be appealing."

Partnership with Discovery
The first Silverdocs festival was in 2003, the year the theater re-opened. AFI was interested in creating a festival for documentaries from the beginning, he says, noting that the documentary community was an underserved one in festival circles. AFI officials spoke with representatives from Discovery Communications, which was based in Bethesda at the time, about a partnership to develop the festival. (Discovery later moved its headquarters to downtown Silver Spring.)

This year's seventh edition of the Silverdocs: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival runs June 15-22. It will screen 122 films from 58 countries, including seven world premieres and a dozen U.S. premieres. The festival received nearly 2,000 submissions.

In 2004, the second year of its existence, Silverdocs added an international documentary conference to its programming. The upcoming five-day conference runs concurrently with the festival. It offers 60 panel discussions and workshops for an expected 1,200 filmmakers and members of the film industry.

Muhammad Ali will be at Silverdocs to present Facing Ali, a film that features interviews with boxers who stepped into the ring with him, along with footage of the bouts. Basketball star LeBron James may also make an appearance. An opening-night film, More Than a Game, documents the stories of five young players – including James – from Akron, Ohio.

Free screening
On June 19, the festival plans a free outdoor screening of For All Mankind, a film that celebrates the 40th anniversary of the first walk on the moon. It presents the stories of the 24 men who have made a lunar trip.

The AFI Silver Theatre has a year-round schedule of screenings, film festivals and special events. In May, for instance, the center presented films starring Cyd Charisse; a series of films featuring well-known Italian actresses; the 2009 D.C. Caribbean Filmfest; Best of the 2009 New African Films Festival; and a collection of South Korean films.

"Where we are has allowed us to do things that we could have never done as well at the Kennedy Center," says Barry, who for many years, headed AFI's National Film Theater at the performing-arts center. Downtown Silver Spring is a crossroads of culture with a gamut of global perspectives, he adds.

He also emphasizes AFI's accessibility at its Silver Spring location. Unlike many museums or cultural centers that present film exhibitions, he says, the AFI site provides direct, street-level access, making it an attraction that everyone can get to.

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