The Macon Film Guild was created to give movie lovers the chance to see independent, art-house and foreign titles that would otherwise never be publicly screened in Middle Georgia.
In the late 1990s, Professor Robert Burnham, of Middle Georgia State University and chair of the Friends of the Douglass Theatre Board, was concerned that many award-winning films were not being shown in Macon — typically films by foreign or independent directors.
Burnham enlisted several college faculty members and their students to sponsor such films at the Douglass Theatre. Two or three attempts to promote recurring films floundered over as many years.
In the fall of 2000, Burnham and Camp Bacon, a collaborator in the last screening attempt, discussed why the attempts kept dying. The greatest impediment was finding distributors willing to lease films to an unknown theatre with small audiences.
Bacon thought that Florida’s Sarasota Film Society (SFS) might be willing to “sponsor” the Douglass Theatre, as they had several other theaters in the Southeast. Also, to avoid the problems with keeping a core group engaged, Bacon agreed that he would, for one year, make the arrangements for film, advertising, etc. If the “guild” could grow a loyal audience in a year, then it would organize to expand the program and support the workload.
Burnham agreed this could work and enlisted the Douglass Theatre board’s support. Bacon negotiated with the SFS to furnish films. However, even with free advertising help from the Macon Telegraph, the first film, “The Color of Paradise,” drew only a modest audience-size success. But those who came were enthusiastic, swept away by the film’s storyline, the glimpse of another culture, and the skill of actors and a director previously unknown to them.
Over the next several films, viewer attendance grew, mainly through word-of-mouth of those early audiences. The tastes of our market were beginning to form, and Dick Morris of SFS became astute at picking the films most likely to attract an audience from our area.
In November 2001, Burnham agreed it was time to organize a volunteer crew from our audience. An eclectic mix of college professors, engineers, artists and a realtor turned to the task of developing the organization, initially called the Douglass Theatre Film Guild.
The initial results were great. Audiences grew steadily and, late in 2003, to allow a greater degree of independence, the guild separated from the Douglass Theatre and incorporated as The Macon Film Guild. However, The Macon Film Guild continues its close association with the Douglass, exhibiting its films there to this day.