A Canadian Cinema Project

Bringing back the magic of going to the movies.

Grand Cameo is the lifelong project of Winnipeg filmmaker and cinema enthusiast Andrew McCrea. The dream is to create a new generation of boutique cinemas across Canada—places with character, spectacle, mystery, and a sense of escape.

The story
Where it began

A cinema should feel like somewhere.

Andrew McCrea saw his first movie at Winnipeg's St. Vital 6 when he was three. It was Beauty and the Beast. He was hooked—not just on movies, but on movie theatres.

As a kid and teenager, it was the scale that captivated him: the enormous screens, the sound, the lights going down, and the feeling of entering somewhere completely different from the world outside.

Then there was the Garrick Cinemas in Winnipeg. Its atomic, space-age character suggested that a movie theatre could be more than a room with seats and a screen. It could have a personality.

St. Vital 6 was eventually replaced by a more conventional multiplex. The Garrick is boarded up and abandoned. And across the industry, many of the things that made cinemas feel distinctive began to disappear.

Charm. Character. Spectacle. The feeling that something might be waiting for you behind the curtains.

Grand Cameo is an attempt to bring some of that feeling back.

1999

The idea was already there.

The idea for Grand Cameo began in December 1999, shortly after SilverCity Polo Park opened in Winnipeg. Andrew would eventually become the theatre's Head Projectionist.

He began imagining something different: cinemas that felt like destinations, where architecture, lighting, curtains, sound, and atmosphere were all part of the experience.

The name Grand Cameo was chosen deliberately. A cameo is a small detail that can make something larger more interesting. Taken together, all those little details can make a cinema feel extraordinary.

It also suggested something larger: a collection of important little institutions, each with their own character.

The Dacotah Drive-In in Dacotah, Manitoba
The Dacotah Drive-In · Dacotah, Manitoba
The first Grand Cameo

The dream became a real place.

Grand Cameo isn't just an idea on paper. The first real location was the Dacotah Drive-In in Dacotah, Manitoba, which began in 2008.

The Dacotah project was an opportunity to put years of experience in exhibition to work in a new way. Andrew had previously worked as Assistant Manager at the Odeon Drive-In in Headingley, Manitoba, Head Projectionist at SilverCity Polo Park, and as a Projectionist at the Globe Cinema in Winnipeg.

Dacotah became the first opportunity to bring those experiences together and begin shaping his own vision for a cinema.

A screen under the prairie sky. The first Grand Cameo.

Dacotah, Manitoba · 2008
The current prototype · 2015

The dream keeps becoming real.

In 2015, Andrew began building a new prototype in his own basement: the Oxford Cinema in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

It is part home theatre, part design laboratory, and part operating prototype—he tests the experience on friends, and even writes all of his own PHP code.

It's a place to keep experimenting with the details that make a cinema feel like a cinema: curtains, lighting, sound, automation, architecture, and atmosphere.

The aesthetic is deliberately restrained: a loft-like space bathed in greys and dark neutrals, striking red accents, gallery-like lighting, and of course, sparkling red curtains.

Grand Cameo basement cinema automation demonstration ▶ Automation Behind the curtain Profile of Grand Cameo creator Andrew McCrea ▶ The story Where the idea came from
The long-term dream

Someday, there will be Grand Cameos across Canada.

A small collection of distinctive boutique cinemas. Places with their own personalities, their own histories, and enough spectacle to make going to the movies feel special again.

Explore Grand Cameo

Two sides of the story.

Cinema

The Cinemas
That Came Before

Explore Grand Cameo's Cinema Treasures archive—a growing collection of movie theatres, memories, and architectural curiosities that inspire what we're building next.

Film

The Stories
We Make

Visit Grand Cameo Films for original films, screenplays, and other cinematic projects from the creative side of Grand Cameo.