Abigail Hebert

Sean Hoessli and Lindie Kuzmich have big plans for Eveningstar Cinema.

The couple, who moved from Montreal to Maine in late 2024, bought the Eveningstar Cinema from previous owner Shaun Boyle in October. After their decades-long careers in and out of the film industry, they were looking for a change of pace.

“We wanted to run our own business. We were looking for a small business, and this cinema just popped out,” Hoessli said.

Hoessli has worked in the film industry for his entire career. He’s done everything from writing and directing his own indie film to developing special effects for “Episode I: The Phantom Menace” of the Star Wars franchise. Special effects is where he has done the most work, both in Los Angeles and Montreal.

Kuzmich, after starting her career in the production industry working in both television and film, went back to school to get a nursing degree. She worked in homeless clinics in LA, hospice care facilities and other nursing roles before transitioning to being a nurse on sets of productions.

“I did that for a year and a half, but it was pretty boring compared to the nursing roles I was used to,” Kuzmich said.

She took on different projects in the film industry, including the couple’s production, “Palm Swings,” which was Hoessli’s second directorial role. Kuzmich also worked in wardrobe for a few years and wrote scripts with Hoessli, who stayed in special effects after the couple moved to Montreal.

When they moved to Brunswick last year, starting at the Eveningstar was a new challenge for the duo, never having run a small business before.

“We’re not used to ordering beer or napkins. It’s different,” Kuzmich said.

While they have a lot of expertise in creating movies, Hoessli and Kuzmich are now tasked with selling tickets. Understanding that movie theaters don’t work without community buy-in, they’ve put a lot of work into building relationships with the Brunswick community.

“There’s a trust level here in Maine. If you’re from away, you have to prove yourself,” Kuzmich said.

As the couple’s move wasn’t more than a few hours, the winter weather wasn’t a big surprise. The sleepiness of Brunswick, however, took some adjusting to, particularly from a business perspective.

“We’re hoping by late spring or summer we’ll be in a rhythm here. We’re still hiring some staff and bonding with the community. [Community] is a big deal for this cinema, and we knew some of that before we came in,… but [you don’t realize] until you’re in it and can see how everything works, including the dynamic,” Kuzmich said.

A key part of this early period is advertising, both to Bowdoin students and the general public. As they put up advertisements and contacted community members, Hoessli and Kuzmich were surprised to hear from many town residents previously unaware of the cinema.

“This has been here for 45 years, and we’re blown away by how many people go, ‘Oh, there’s a cinema there?,’” Kuzmich said.

Hoessli and Kuzmich also have plans to build out the Eveningstar’s offerings and construct a small stage in the main screening room to open the door to different types of performances.

“We want to keep adding so it’s not just a cinema. Why not broaden our horizons and think big?” Kuzmich said.

Aside from upgrading the physical space, the couple has upgraded the cinema’s schedule, showing multiple movies a week and developing themed programming like series of Oscar winners, music documentaries and classic movies.

This weekend, the theater is showing “I’m Still Here” and “No Other Land,” Oscar-nominated and winning foreign films, respectively. They’re also showing “The Birdcage,” a film featuring recently deceased actor Gene Hackman, and “The Last Waltz,” a Martin Scorsese documentary about a legendary concert.

Hoessli and Kuzmich particularly want to bring Bowdoin students to the cinema, seeing the students as an underutilized audience. With just under 2,000 students on Bowdoin’s campus, the couple sees a wide variety of interests and preferences and hopes they’ll be able to hear from students about what they and their friends want to see in the theater.

“We’re hoping to encourage, particularly the Bowdoin crowd, to experience things on the big screen,” Hoessli said.