[December 20, 2014]

Michael Lynton
Chairman and CEO
Sony Entertainment, Inc.

Amy Pascal
Co-chair
Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group

Dear Mr. Lynton and Ms. Pascal:

Your Art House motion picture colleagues wish to support you and your company at this difficult time. We empathize with the ruthless attack your company suffered and we want to help in our small but powerful way.

The enormity of the attack your company has suffered and the difficulty of the decisions you have been forced to make in recent days are nearly unimaginable; similarly, is the monumental nature of the business disruption your company has endured in recent weeks. Your life, and possibly your judgment, has been disrupted beyond comprehension. The financial bottom line impact will be, frankly, unfathomable for an independent Art House to comprehend. However, in life and art, values are the ultimate “bottom line” and striving for freedom and goodness are the sometimes conflicting, but paramount values of enlightened societies.

We understand that The Interview is, on one level, “just a movie,” meaning in terms of human history a probably facile entertainment and business investment. But circumstance has propelled this work into a nexus of values, both societal and artistic. It is also, as an artistic and national community, an opportunity to respond clearly to the behavior of a pathetic international bully opposed, by word and deed, to the value of freedom.

We, the independent Art House community, will gladly exhibit “The Interview,” as a special, one-day showing without pecuniary expectation, or as regular part of our cinema programming. We do this to express the value and power of freedom and to support you, our artistic and business colleague, during a time of great vexation.

Best wishes to you and all your Sony Entertainment colleagues as you endeavor to restore normalcy (if that is possible in show business!), to your work-life, and your business.

Most Sincerely,
Russ Collins
CEO, Michigan Theater - Ann Arbor
Director, Art House Convergence - Utah
Founder, Cinetopia Festival – Detroit/A2