It was a successful first weekend of operations at the Paramount Theatre for the Kamloops Film Society.

Executive Director Dusan Magdolen says there were about 350 people who took in the three movies that were screened last weekend.

Magdolen says he kept his expectations in check for their first weekend.

“On our end things probably won’t as smooth as they will be one day. The popcorn was going and it was delicious,” he said. “A lot of people were thrilled that we had brought back those three films because they had missed them during the festival. In particular ‘The Grizzlies’ had excellent showings.”

He adds the Society was expecting some growing pains as they take over the theatre operations.

“To some extent, we had no idea how it could go, especially since we were showing films again and we had some people see them and maybe they are not going to come out,” Magdolen said. “So I think yeah, it did about as good as we could have hoped for. If we continue to get numbers like we did this weekend, things will be alright.”

As for this next weekend, Paramount Theatre will again be open on Friday and Saturday as well, with three movies on each day.

“There was a small chance we would have done four but I think three just timing wise it works out better,” Magdolen added. “So we are just waiting to get those confirmed and then we’ll get the word out and as we get smoother and have our scheduling sort of in place, we’ll hopefully start to know our coming movies a little bit earlier as opposed the week of, but you know, all things in good time.”

The film society has plans to gradually expand the number of operating days to seven each week.