This paper clarifies the interaction and participation in community cinema as a place for community. We examined three cases with different forms such as scale and functions among theaters built nationwide since the 2000s. For the theater managers, we conducted interview surveys, and in the case A with the largest scale among the three cases, we conducted a free-form questionnaire survey, interview surveys, and behavior observation surveys for 20 visitors.
The results of the survey are summarized as “Ladder of Participation”, and it turned out that it is important to have connections with visitors as human environment, and approaches as physical environments in order to create independent participation of visitors. As the stage of participation goes higher, the visitor’s connection is not only the conversation with the operator or staff ’but also the conversation among the visitors. In addition, in order to have a sense of ownership for visitors, a long-running event is required. Furthermore, visitors get the chance for participation to events of various cycles and periods and participate having a sense of ownership to them.
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