He arrived in China in 1993 to organize a John Denver concert. Cherry Lane Music owns and manages the copyrights to about 6,000 songs, but Primont is best known in Beijing not for his music publishing business, but for Cherry Lane Movies, a non-commercial club that organizes fortnightly screenings of Chinese films with English subtitles. Primont believes that film gives foreigners a unique view of China and Chinese culture that is not available in any other way.
Chinese film goes deep into the countryside, deep into China's past.
It pokes into nooks and crannies of urban life you will never reach as a foreigner. And so, Cherry Lane Movies. Since the club's inception, ticket sales have barely covered costs, and Primont has been known to dip into his own pocket to pay the theater rental bill. The rmb50 ticket price, steep by Chinese standards, just covers the rental if the movie plays to a fairly full house. Finding the movies themselves can be difficult.