RHINEBECK, N.Y. — A major renovation of Upstate Films’ Starr Cinema received a big boost from actress Amanda Seyfried.
Upstate Film’s Co-Director Jason Silverman said Tuesday, Feb. 10, that Seyfried’s donation will help renovate the Starr Cinema’s concession stand.
Seyfried, an Ulster County resident, is known for her roles in “Mean Girls” and “Mamma Mia.”
Silverman said the road to the donation started when Seyfried, an Upstate Films regular, was waiting in the Starr Cinema’s lobby to take part in a question-and-answer session during a Friday, Jan. 23, screening of her recent film, “The Testament of Ann Lee,” when she met Upstate Films Development Manager Kym Bradley-Rickard,
“Amanda was asking why the lobby was all torn apart,” Silverman said. “Kym said, ‘We’re fixing it up to make it better.’ And Amanda said, ‘How can I help?’”
The conversation ultimately ended with Seyfried dedicating the concession stand, according to Silverman. “It’s a sizeable donation.”
Actress Amanda Seyfried, known for “Mean Girls” and “Mamma Mia,” hosted a Q&A during a sold-out screening of her film “The Testament of Ann Lee” on Jan. 23 at Upstate Film’s Starr Cinema in Rhinebeck, N.Y. At the event, Seyfried announced a significant donation towards the renovation of Starr Cinema’s concession stand, which is part of a major renovation underway at the historic theater. (Mike Lawrie, Upstate Films, photo provided).
Seyfried heaped praise on the Starr Cinema and Upstate Films during the question-and-answer session that night.
“Every time I pass this theater, because I go to Paper Trail a lot, you’re always playing the coolest,” she said. “What are you doing? You’re doing everything right.”
Seyfried described the Starr Cinema as a beacon while emphasizing the importance of being together.
“It’s cozy,” she said. “We need to sit together and watch art. I know streaming definitely keeps you at home. It’s a freezing cold night, and you’re getting so much more out of being together than you are being home alone.”
“It’s pretty sexy here,” she added, drawing laughter and applause from the audience.
Seyfried has also become a fixture at the Woodstock Film Festival in recent years.
The new concession stand complements a major renovation project involving a complete $420,000 remodel of the Starr Cinema’s 42-seat small screening room with a state-of-the-art sound system and acoustics, raked seating, platforms, and a new, larger screen. Silverman said he expects this project, which is 85% complete, to be finished by April.
He added that the renovated screening room — named the Huseby Screening Room, after Sven and Barbara Huseby, who underwrote a significant amount of the cost of the renovation project — will have “really cozy seats.”
The new screening room will be fully Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant, a first for the cinema. The cinema will also gain a new fully accessible ADA restroom in the lobby, bringing an end to patrons having to walk through a dark theater to use the restroom, Silverman said.
The Starr Cinema has already seen sound system upgrades, behind-the-scenes upgrades to its heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system, and the paving of its parking lot, he said.
Silverman shared a bit of the building’s history, which spans more than 170 years back to 1864, when the country was in the midst of the Civil War and before movies were invented.
“It was built as a library initially, and was later expanded into a community center,” Silverman said. “Sometime around 1930, they put in a commercial movie theater called the Starr Theater.”
After Upstate Films took over the Starr Theater in 1972, the cinema became simply known as Upstate Films. After nearly 50 years of ownership, Steve and DeDe Lieber passed the torch to the nonprofit.
After Upstate Films purchased the circa-1908, three-screen Orpheum Theatre in Saugerties in 2021 and later opened the Upstate Midtown at 591 Broadway in Kingston in September 2025, the Starr Cinema name was revived, Silverman said. He added that while Upstate Films loves its historic buildings, they do present some challenges when it comes to renovations.
“What’s happened during both of the big Oprheum projects and this building is when you get into an old building, there will be surprises,” he said.
Upstate Films leans heavily on private donations for large projects such as the Mark screening room, which debuted in March 2024 at the Orpheum Theatre, Silverman said. The screening room features a high-tech 32-channel Dolby Atmos sound system. The renovation work also included the full restoration of the Orpheum’s marquee and exterior, completed in September 2025, he added.
Like many other arts organizations across the nation, Upstate Films saw a pledged National Endowment for the Arts grant for $15,000 clawed back by the Trump administration earlier this year, according to Silverman. But the impact of that loss has been offset by ever-growing community support, he said.
“We’ve tripled the number of members we’ve had since the pandemic,” Silverman said. “Those members help sustain us. A lot of people feel a sense of pride and ownership about Upstate Films.”
Seyfried, fellow actress Frances McDormand, and her husband, filmmaker Joel Coen, all recognize that theaters are really important, and maybe more than ever before in bringing people together, Silverman said.
“This is important in a time when there’s a lot of division, and people are feeling alienated,” he said. “That’s our contribution towards making our communities a little stronger and more unified and spreading a little joy and inspiration.”
Asked if changes in the film industry, such as Netflix’s proposed $83 billion takeover of the storied Hollywood studio Warner Bros., will put the future of theaters in doubt, Silverman said no one can say for sure what the future of cinema will be. He added, however, that he feels the human desire to be together will ensure a future for movie theaters.
“Being together to share experiences is as important as food or water,” he said. “The movies … for a long time, have been one of the most popular ways to do that. We don’t think it’s going away anytime soon.”
In an age dominated by streaming, algorithms, and artificial intelligence, people are looking for meaning and deeper experiences, Silverman added. And he feels Upstate Films is uniquely positioned to fulfill this longing with programming that includes welcoming filmmakers in person, live performances, and talk-back sessions after screenings.
Those experiences simply can’t be replicated by consuming content on a device, he said.
“It may be the same movie,” Silverman said, ” but when you sit down by other people, laugh and cover your eyes during the scary part, you can immerse yourself rather than watching it while you wash the dishes. It lands in our bodies differently.”
He then discussed how Upstate Films’ programming works. “Having films that challenge people a little more is becoming more deeply appreciated by a lot of people right now.”
While most movie theaters make their decisions on profit, Upstate Films only has to bring in enough money to balance the books, leaving the non-profit with more freedom to make choices motivated by mission over money, Silverman said.
“We want to bring people together,” Silverman said. “We want to put smiles on people’s faces. We want to inspire them to think more deeply, think about the world in new ways. We want them to see new places and want them to connect with each other.”
For more information about Upstate Films, showtimes, and an event schedule, visit upstatefilms.org/.
