Rialto Cinemas’ 20th anniversary
By Laura Hagar Rush, Sonoma West Editor , [email protected]
Jan 8, 2020

Rialto Cinemas is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a big party at the theater in Sebastopol on Jan. 21.

Looking back at the last 20 years running the theater, owner Ky Boyd said, “It’s been a fantastic adventure.”

The Rialto opened its doors as Sonoma County’s first art house cinema in April 2000 in a location on Summerfield Road in Santa Rosa. Boyd remembers that at the time few people thought of Sonoma County as an art house market, and many predicted a quick demise for the business. He and his partner thought otherwise.

“We saw that there was a market here, that the audience existed. We just needed to provide the movies and show people that they would be there on a consistent basis,” he said.

It was a cause célèbre among the county’s cognoscenti in 2010 when the Rialto’s landlord declined to renew their lease. Four thousand people flocked to a Facebook page set up to support the theater, and 800 people attended the theater’s closing night party. For 20 long months, Rialto Cinemas went on the road — showing films at 6th Street Playhouse, the Jackson Theater and anywhere else they could find.

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