Three months after the curtains fell on alt-cinema Bangkok Screening Room, the venue’s new tenant is nearly ready to open its doors to film buffs. 

 

Documentary Club on Thursday teased a photo of its new space, dubbed Doc Club & Pub, which will comprise a cinema, art space and cafe in the Bangkok Screening Room’s former digs. 

 

Doc Club & Pub is expected to open in July, but an official opening date has yet to be announced in light of ongoing coronavirus restrictions. The venue is located on Soi Sala Daeng 1 and is reachable from BTS Sala Daeng exit No. 4 or MRT Lumphini exit No. 2.

 

Alt-cinema Bangkok Screening Room concluded its run at the end of March earlier this year. Shortly thereafter came word that the movie house won’t be demolished but rather handed over to a tenant at the fore of serious films in the capital, Documentary Club.

 

The club’s founder, Thida Plitpolkarnpim, said the move resulted from her regretting the loss of another quality cinema in Bangkok. Thida said the venue will be lightly modified to fit Documentary Club’s direction.

 

Documentary Club was founded in 2014 through a crowdsourcing platform. The community, which has more than 196,000 followers on Facebook, also offers a streaming service called Doc Club on Demand which screens dozens of licensed movies.

 

Due to the third wave of the COVID-19 outbreak beyond Bangkok that started in April, cinemas were among venues that have been ordered shut, with no date of reopening in sight.