Just as downtown Hamilton wouldn’t be the same without the movie theater marquee, for many Vermonters, it was impossible to imagine Burlington without Merrill’s Roxy Cinema. So when “the Roxy” closed its doors in 2024, Burlington residents vowed not to leave the city without a cinema for long.
After it became clear that no commercial movie theater would replace the Roxy, Michelle Sagalchik ’15, MAT’16 and her husband, Brett Yates, decided to take action. After all, when the couple was deciding where to live in 2021, one of their non- negotiables was that the city have a cinema.
The couple never expected that, in order to check that box, they would have to open one themselves. Their brainchild, Partizanfilm, would be a new kind of movie theater: a microcinema, a nonprofit, and a cooperative.
Quickly they built a team to help. “We reached out to a few people we knew who either loved movies or were invested in Burlington and Burlington’s political climate and cultural climate,” Sagalchik says. In addition to Sagalchik and her husband, the five-person board features a grad student, a University of Vermont professor, and a physical therapist involved in Vermonters for People-Oriented Places.
The Roxy couldn’t be resold as a movie theater because of stipulations by the previous owner, so the founding members had to hunt for a new space. In mid-2025 Partizanfilm officially moved into a building next door to where the Roxy had been. But the work didn’t stop there. It took another six months to equip the property with two working screening rooms, a bar and concessions area, bathrooms, and more. While the two screening rooms are small — one with 31 seats and the other with 19 — “each seat has a great view of the screen,” Sagalchik promises.
More than a hundred community members offered to help them tackle the renovations. One volunteer built an ADA- accessible table. Many painted. Another designed their logo.
One volunteer spackler was Nate Del Prete ’09. A frequent visitor to the Roxy, Del Prete heard that a new movie cooperative was starting and immediately got involved. “I signed up for a membership right away, got on the mailing list, and said I’d be willing to help.”
Del Prete wasn’t the only eager cinephile. A month before opening, 350 people had already signed up as annual members. For $60 per year, members can vote in the elections that will determine the next board or run for the board themselves. They can also participate in a member work program — as well as receiving discounted movie tickets, free popcorn on their birthdays, and more.
From the beginning, “we wanted to be committed to having it be a community project and focusing on this nonprofit cooperative model,” says Sagalchik. While the board members are new to nonprofit work, all of them had some experience in community and political organizing.
“Burlington is big on co-ops,” Del Prete notes. “I largely think that co-ops are a beneficial economic structure and they step in for its needs for third spaces.” Third spaces are informal public places — separate from home and work or school — where community members can gather and bond. Partizanfilm, with its café and small-scale bookstore, could be one such place.
In particular, Sagalchik is aware of the need for third spaces for young people, who are often priced out of downtown businesses.
“Young people often don’t have places to go in the city because they’re not big money spenders, and so they’re not welcome in a lot of businesses,” she says. “Finding places where young people can go to spend their time and have it be pretty accessible and not tons of money, I think, is important for a city and community life.”
Partizanfilm opened on Dec. 3, 2025, with a members-only celebration, followed by the grand opening on Dec. 4. “We had more than 100 people come through to check out the space and celebrate,” Sagalchik notes, adding that their first few evening screenings all sold out.
Seven days a week, Vermonters can now enjoy new independent and foreign films, plus repertory screenings with a monthly theme. Their first category, movies about movie theaters, included The Last Picture Show, The Long Day Closes, and A Useful Life.
“My education at Colgate — particularly from the educational studies department — really shaped my perspective on how important it is to be a part of building the community and the world that we want to be a part of,” Sagalchik says. “My involvement in Partizanfilm is an extension of that worldview.”
“Partizanfilm” was a nickname given to state-run film company Belarusfilm because it made so many movies about fighting the Nazis. Plus, Belarus is where Sagalchik’s family is from.