The Athena Cinema celebrated 110 years with stories and memories
By: Talia Milewich
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ATHENS, Ohio — Ayse Suer recalls a favorite memory from her years attending the Athena Cinema. It was an emotional moment during a showing of the documentary film “Pavarotti.”
“My daughter and my late husband were sitting on two sides of me and at one point I noticed all three of us were crying, but so happy at the same time,” Suer said.
Suer shared this recollection during a celebration of the theater’s 110th anniversary this week.
Suer was one of the many attendees at the celebration who had a personal connection to the theater. Others shared stories about attending screenings growing up and continuing to do so to this day.
One Ph.D. student shared his experience as someone who is part of student organizations that have held events at the theater. “People from different ethnicities and different communities and they come together and enjoy it,” Aqueel Ahmad said.
He shared how it has become a special place for him and his community. “This place has become very sacred in that way, and it’s also a place of belonging for me,” Ahmad said.
The Athena Cinema opened its doors in 1915 and is one of the oldest movie theaters in the country. It is the last standing movie theater in Athens following the closing last year of the multiplex on East State Street.
The theater opened with a showing of Mary Pickford’s “Cinderella.” In addition to movies, the theater also offered burlesque and vaudeville stage shows in its early years.
Between 1949 and 1988, the Athena was not the only theater on Court Street. The Varsity theater was just across the street, where Chipotle is now located, and was owned by the same person for a few years until it closed in 1988.
The Athena is now operated by the College of Fine Arts at Ohio University and staffed by students.
The birthday celebration included a reception filled with refreshments, champagne, music and more. A screening of “Cinema Paradiso” was shown for the cost of a dime, the same as it was opening night.
“To me, the movies are always wonderful here,” Suer said. “I have never watched anything that I have been disappointed by, so thank you Athena Cinema.”