If you live in Humboldt County and have been dying to see the much-discussed, awards-lavished Edward Snowden documentary Citizenfour, you’re probably pretty frustrated by now. It was released in theaters nine months ago, but it never showed up at any local ones. Even now your only options for watching it require either breaking the law or shelling out $15 for a digital copy from the likes of Amazon, iTunes and Google Play.

Aimee Hennessy and Merrick McKinlau, co-owners of the Arcata video store La Dolce Video, say it’s their most-requested movie, and the duo is finally bringing the film to local audiences — not on DVD or Blu-ray but in Humboldt County’s newest movie theater: the Miniplex, which will have its grand opening this weekend.

The 35-seat screening room is located on Samoa Blvd. in Arcata, next door to Richard’s Goat Tavern & Tea Room, the hip, Kickstarter-supported bar the two opened last November. The theater will mostly screen first-run independent films, foreign flicks and documentaries — movies that wouldn’t otherwise be shown locally — but it will also host older stuff, including classics and “some trippy psychedelic movies from the ‘60s,” Hennessy said.

In fact, the film scheduled for Grand Opening weekend is the surreal 1968 Bob Rafelson movie Head, starring (ahem) The Monkees and featuring Jack Nicholson, who also co-wrote it.

Upcoming movies will include White God (a social critique from Hungary starring hundreds of dogs), The Wolfpack (a documentary about six brothers raised in the isolation of a New York housing project apartment and self-educated through Hollywood movies) and Tangerine (described as a “moving, hilarious Christmas tale about two trans sex workers”).

When Hennessy and McKinlau opened the video store in 2009 (after purchasing the movie library from the late Video Experience), they hoped to someday open a bar and live-music venue, Hennessy said. But they noticed that the Minor Theater wasn’t showing as many independent movies as it once did. About 10 years ago, former theater owner David Phillips began leasing the Minor to Ashland-based Coming Attractions, which has been responsible for booking movies there (as well as Eureka’s Broadway Cinemas and McKinleyville’s Mill Creek Cinemas) ever since.

“We just saw that there were a lot of titles that were slipping through the cracks that were coming out on DVD and we’d be like, ‘Why did this not play here? This is an amazing film, and it’s got so much critical acclaim’ — the kinds of movies customers were asking us [about] for months before they came out.”

The Miniplex will screen those kinds of movies by making deals with the distributors, and since the theater is small, Hennessy said, they’ll have to pay those distributors revenue guarantees — the same guarantees paid by much larger theaters. 

“So it’s definitely not the profit-minded portion of the business,” Hennessy said with a smile. “We’re hoping to get enough extra business [at Richard’s Goat] from the theater [customers] that we’re not losing too much money on it. But it’s a passion of ours, so … .” It’s worth it, was the implication.

Customers at Richard’s Goat will be allowed to take food and beverages (including beer and cocktails) into the theater, which is accessible through an interior door connecting the two spaces.

“People can drink while they watch movies,” Hennessy said. “That’s an important one for me.”

Inside, the dark screening room features a modest-sized movie screen mounted high on the wall and a variety of seating options. There’s a row of vintage theater seats picked up from the Bay Area after being purchased on Craigslist and another row of seats (with cup-holders) that were once court-side in the Portland Trailblazers’ stadium. At the back of the room customers will be able to sit on cushy barstools at tall cocktail tables.

All those tables and chairs can be moved to make room for live-music events and karaoke, both of which are also planned for the venue, Hennessy said.

With movies, the owners plan to have multiple showings per day, including weekend matinees and, eventually, midnight screenings.

The Grand Opening event will take place this Saturday and Sunday with screenings of Head at 3:30, 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. And tickets ($5 for matinees, $7 for evening shows) are on sale now. Given the unquenched thirst of Humboldt’s movie nerds, you should expect these tickets to go quickly.