Dan Wester developed his love for film as a Tallahassee teenager at the Miracle Five Theater. Built in the 1960s, the theater ushered in generations of cinematic adventurers and contained Wester’s fondest movie memories. He’ll never forget seeing John Waters’ “Female Trouble” for the first time as a Florida State University freshman. As a high school student, he worked in the theater and credits the managers that curated foreign and independent films as influential in opening his mind up to unique world cinema.

He distinctly remembers walking into the screening of Michael Moore’s “Roger and Me” at the Cinema Twin, which provoked his thoughts surrounding what a documentary could accomplish. When this last “pure art house,” according to Wester, closed at Tallahassee Mall, he and John Fraser co-founded the Tallahassee Film Society, and later began All Saints Cinema. Together, they have worked to bring new and exciting films to the Tallahassee area for 17 years. The dimming of Miracle Five’s sunset-colored sign in 2011 struck a chord with Wester, as All Saints Cinema assumed the role as the last local independent movie theater standing.

“Film clubs are about educating yourself and expanding your enjoyment of the art medium itself,” says Wester, whose affinity for speaking about and watching films translated into his involvement with All Saints.

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