After 47 years, the owner of the iconic Highlands Cinema in Kinmount, Ont., is looking for someone to take over the business when he’s gone. The job, says owner Keith Stata (a.k.a. The Movie Man), is a big one to fill.
The sprawling 18,500-sq.-ft. cinema, which sits between the Kawarthas and the Haliburton Highlands, is home to five theatres, 550 seats, a 4,000-sq.-ft. movie memorabilia museum, around 60 cats, and several bears—all this in a town of only 500 year-round residents.
When Stata built the cinema in 1979, it consisted of one humble 58-seat theatre that was added as an extension to his home. As word about the quirky theatre venture grew, so did the number of moviegoers. To accommodate the increase in business, Stata started building more screens in the 1980s, ending up with a total of five by 1996.
Over the years, the eccentric establishment has garnered much attention, including 631 reviews on Google, over 350 news articles, and a 2024 documentary about the place called The Movie Man that opened at the Santa Barbara Film Festival. It’s also become a beloved community institution for locals and cottagers alike.
In one letter shared by Stata, a patron named Rhiannon, who grew up going to the theatre every summer, says she lives in Nova Scotia now with her husband but planned to bring him to the cinema this summer for his first ever movie-going experience. Stata says he’s received hundreds of similar letters from patrons. Others shared that they grew up going to the Highlands Cinema, but they now bring their own children or even grandchildren.
In addition to the maze of unique theatres attached to Stata’s home, guests from all over the world are drawn to the hallways upon hallways packed with antique movie equipment, dozens of costume-clad mannequins, and vintage posters and props. Equally beloved are the cats, which have the cinema doubling as a feline sanctuary, and the local bears.
Despite the business’s success over nearly five decades, 79-year-old Stata says he’s getting old and his 70-year-old business partner Roland Allen is dealing with health problems. In order to ensure the Highlands Cinema lives on after he’s gone, Stata announced in his fall message that he’s looking to gift the business to a new owner.
Only, it’s not an easy job, he warns. “The reality with the theatre is that you’re not going to get rich, and it’s a lot of work. It’s more a labor of love than it is anything else,” says Stata.
On top of running the movie side of the operation, the new owners will be in charge of taking care of 60 cats with myriad health problems ranging from diabetes to Alzheimer’s and cleaning the 14 cat houses on the property. With medicine, feedings, and cleaning considered, Stata says taking care of the cats alone takes up 40 hours of the work week.
“It amounts to a lot of work, and it’s not for everyone,” he says. “Right now, I’ve got a cat climbing all over me when I’m at my desk trying to do something.”
And Stata wants to be clear: the business is being gifted with the understanding that the cats continue to be cared for and that cinema operations should continue relatively unchanged.
The new owner will not only need to be a cat and movie lover, but they’ll also need to have good business sense as well as the ability to shoulder the capital gains tax that will be incurred once the cinema is gifted upon Stata’s death.
“The deal is the building is free, and everything here is free,” says Stata. “But there’s an obligation that you look after the cats and there’s the caveat of capital gains.”
Despite the tall task, Stata has received six or seven inquiries but hasn’t found a replacement yet. Still, he’s hopeful he will find the right person. “We’re going to have meetings after the next two to three weeks,” he says. “I’m fairly confident. I got a couple of people I’m looking at that could work out.”
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