Maitland arthouse cinema Enzian Theater marks 40 years in 2025 of bringing adventurous movies to the greater Orlando area — along with plenty of film festivals, special events and deep-dive series. And this single-screen nonprofit theater shows no signs of slowing down.
Since opening on Feb. 15, 1985, with an event featuring silent film actress Lillian Gish, the theater has remained a tastemaking presence in Central Florida’s arts and culture scene.
Enzian board member Sigrid Tiedtke — part of the Tiedtke family who started the theater: Tina Tiedtke founded it, John Tiedtke funded it, Sigrid Tiedtke and Phillip Tiedtke ran it for many years — joined the staff of the theater in 1989, transitioning from a background in mechanical engineering to independent cinema, learning a deep love of film and how it connects people from her sister-in-law Tina.
“The mission has always been to bring the community together and watch great films together,” says Tiedtke. “The Enzian exists to entertain, educate, inspire and connect the community through film. And it’s still doing that, it’s still doing what Tina dreamt it would do.”
Longtime Enzian Programming Director Matthew Curtis is just shy of marking 30 years in that role — and his work has been an important part of Enzian’s success, surviving filesharing, a streaming revolution and a pandemic.
“I think that when people come to the theater, they realize what a special place it is. Hopefully they have a terrific experience, and they come back, and they want to bring people back, and that has been a kind of self-sustaining system all of these years,” says Curtis. “Because make no doubt about it, a single-screen nonprofit arthouse in this day, not even today but 25 years ago, was a dinosaur. There just aren’t many left. … It’s a testament to our audience, the local community and what we can offer.”
Tiedtke posits that the human scale of the theater is one of the keys to its success: “The fact that you have a little local cinema where your programmers are right there in the house and you can talk to them, is unique. That doesn’t happen often.”
The theater has screened a mind-boggling number of adventurous films throughout its four-decade history. “I think we’ve counted and with our single screen and all of our mini-festivals and our outdoor movies and the Florida Film Festival, we do between 400-500 different films a year, and with a single screen, that’s amazing,” says Curtis.
A personal cinematic highlight for Tiedtke came in 1990, when Enzian screened Pedro Almodóvar’s adventurous Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, drawing huge audiences nightly.
“I just remember sitting outside and watching crowds pouring into the parking lot to go to the movies, which was a very, very exciting moment for Enzian and for me,” Tiedtke says.
Shortly after, Enzian launched the Florida Film Festival, further establishing the arthouse’s role in the larger cinema landscape. Especially when it featured the East Coast premiere of a little UCF-connected horror movie in the late 1990s called The Blair Witch Project. The film was a hit locally, with sell-outs aplenty, and went on to become a national phenomenon.
This symbiotic relationship with Florida’s independent film community and a willingness to lend their screen to upstarts, outsiders and DIY firebrands with events like Florida Film Festival, Central Florida Film Slam and sundry special events distinguishes Enzian from other theaters in the area.
“We’ve always believed in showing films that push boundaries and bring something different to the screen,” Tiedtke says.
“I think it’s something the theater as a nonprofit cultural arts organization has always tried to encourage, where we have these different showcases for local filmmakers,” says Curtis.
“It’s more than just watching a movie; it’s about conversation and connection,” Tiedtke concurs.
The nonprofit status of the theater, as well, makes its mission different from big cineplexes.
“We’re a 501(c)(3), and I think people, when they know that, tend to care more and realize, ‘Oh, this is a cultural arts institution. This is not a theater that’s just out to make as much money as they possibly can and charge as much as they can.’ This is something that cares about cinema as an art form, and wants to enrich the community as a true cultural arts institution,” says Curtis. “And that’s what we’re about.”
The COVID-19 pandemic was catastrophic for theaters large and small, including Enzian. Though the theater did endure. “That was a hard time for everybody everywhere. I believe we were closed, as in, not allowing people indoors, for two months,” says Tiedtke. “But what saw us through largely was Eden Bar, because it was outdoors, and we spread tables and chairs all over the property.”
“The pandemic almost killed the movie-going business,” says Curtis. “First-run is still a struggle. We’re still not up to where we were in 2019, for first-run movies. But special programming is consistently awesome.”
The special programming is what really distinguishes Enzian, and the sense of enthusiastic play involved in putting together a lot of it.
“We wouldn’t do this if there wasn’t a joy [in] bringing these films to the community. I’m notorious for standing in the back of the theater watching the audience react to the movies we play. I love that,” smiles Curtis. “There’s nothing like seeing a film on the big screen with an audience in the dark. It’s a special, magical moment.”
To Tiedtke as well, the audience is just as special as the films screened. “I hear stories about people meeting here, businesses forming, even love stories beginning at Enzian,” Tiedtke says. “It’s incredible to think about how many lives have intersected because of this space.”
Enzian’s 40th anniversary celebrations continue with a free screening of 1985 cult classic Better Off Dead outdoors at Winter Park’s Central Park on Thursday at 7 p.m. And there will be a glitzy Casino Royale Gala anniversary party at the theater on Saturday at 7 p.m.
Subscribe to Orlando Weekly newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Bluesky | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
This article appears in Feb 12-18, 2025.