Owner: Cinelounge won’t close this week despite fundraising urgency

Tiburon resident Christian Meoli says his downtown movie theater won’t close this week, despite a fundraising campaign that suggested Cinelounge needed to raise $500,000 by April 21 to survive.

Meoli, who co-owns the theater with his wife Camilla, acknowledged the messaging was a deliberate “Hail Mary” approach after earlier announcements about the theater’s planned transition to nonprofit status failed to gain traction.

“That’s the decision that I had to make to really jumpstart what we consider to be, so far, a very successful initiative,” Meoli said in an April 16 phone interview.

The theater’s GoFundMe campaign, titled “Preserve a Community Cinema Born from Love,” warned in an April 14 email that “our beloved Cinelounge could fade to black for good” without reaching its financial goal. But Meoli clarified that people could continue donating after the deadline, adding that meeting even part of the goal would provide a good start over the next couple of months toward resolving the theater’s financial struggles.

The theater will hold a “Save the Reels, Raise the Roof” fundraiser from 5:30 to 9 p.m. April 29 at Malibu Farm, whose co-owner John Stockwell was Cougar in 1986’s “Top Gun” and directed 2002’s “Blue Crush.”

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