photo credit: courtesy Summerfield Cinemas Facebook page
Summerfield Cinemas is screening free films on Sunday, March 9th, 2025.

 Santa Rosa’s Summerfield Cinemas is closing for good this weekend. 

The beloved cultural locale will mark the occasion with free screenings of films shot here, like Alfred Hitchcock’s 1943 film, Shadow of a Doubt.

Clip from Shadow of a Doubt “Yes. We’re almost in Santa Rosa, you want to be ready when we get to Santa Rosa. I’m ready now thanks. I’ll get all your bags out for you then.”

That’s one of the movies that will be screened for free this Sunday, March 9th, 2025, the final day of operations.

Gabe Meline is senior editor on the KQED Arts & Culture desk and will be there, sharing stories for each film, including 1985’s Smooth Talk, and 1975’s Smile.

“I’ll talk about the movies, give people locations to look out for when they’re watching the movie, tell some stories from behind the scenes of the filming of the movie," said Meline. "A lot of local excitement about these movies when they were filmed here. And I think it will just be a nice send off for theater that is – now it’s the oldest existing movie theater in Santa Rosa. It’s been open since 1968, continuously operating as a movie theater.”

There are some fun shooting locations that are sure to inspire nostalgia for old Santa Rosa, according to Meline.

“Your memories are gonna be jostled, I think. When I watched Smooth Talk and saw scenes of the mall, I was like, ‘Oh yeah – the old brown tile! The, the strange, large redwood log that was in the middle of the mall for some reason.” You know, they go to Coddingtown Cinemas at one point in that movie. You can see JC Penney in the background. A bygone Santa Rosa that, luckily, was memorialized by Hollywood in these films," Meline said.

The closure follows months of efforts by fans of the theater to keep it open, as well as potential development deals that have fallen through.

Dan Tocchini is owner of Santa Rosa Entertainment Group, which operates Summerfield Cinemas. He says multiple factors have led to the closure.

“The pandemic of course effected art and foreign film much heavier than the commercial film. It seemed to hit the older people were affected more by coming out, and the business never really came back after the pandemic," said Tocchini. "And another thing that added to it is the – the independent industry has a tendency to stream much quicker, because in some cases they don’t have the money to wait for the distribution throughout the theaters, so they go to streaming much quicker.”

Meline says he hopes there is still a chance for movie theaters to entertain the public they way they used to, and not to move towards a trend of overpriced, boutique cinema.

“When I started going to Summerfield, it really was just the sort of workman-like, neighborhood movie theater. And there were lots of movie theaters in Santa Rosa, all over the place. Showing films as cheap family entertainment. An affordable night out on the town. And if that gets “bougified,” which I think that’s where we’re headed, that’s gonna be a sad thing," said Meline.

Tocchini says that the Roxy 14, one of his other cinemas, will devote two theaters to indie and foreign language films.

The free screenings of locally-shot films on Sunday at Summerfield Cinemas start at 1pm.