I hadn’t heard about this before, but apparently there’s a service called Tugg that lets people set up screenings of films they like at some movie theaters, including Kiggins Theatre in Vancouver.

The service lets you pick a film from their catalog and set a screening date. Then you promote the film among your friends, who can buy tickets online. If enough tickets are sold, the film is funded and the screening goes forward. If not, everybody gets a refund.

I came across this because someone is trying to set up a screening of a cannabis documentary film called “The Culture High” at Kiggins on Tuesday, Dec. 9 at 7 p.m. If interested, you can sign up through their page here: http://www.tugg.com/events/12017

Kiggins has done about 10 of these things so far, with about half getting fully funded, said Richard Beer, the theater’s programming director.

“Tugg is a company which allows people to be programmers of theaters,” Beer said. “They have a huge catalog of films. You can find a film and sponsor it for an evening.”

Kiggins also works with a similar service called Gathr, he said.

Beer watched “The Culture High” a few months ago, and he called it “the most balanced” of the pot documentaries he’s seen so far.

“It’s not just a ‘yay, pot’s great’ story,” Beer said. “It’s a really touching story with very well respected people.”

I haven’t had time to look through the rest of the catalog yet, but it seems like the film might pare well with a showing of the documentary “Evergreen,” about Washington’s legalization efforts, at some point.

Anybody else heard of this service or thinking of going to the screening? Let us know what you think!

Cheers,
-SueVo (sue.vorenberg@columbian.com)