The walk though downtown, on opening night of FLICS, sets the tone as a corner is turned and the bright lights of the Fox Theater come into view.

The Fox is elegant and sophisticated in design and content, hinting at a time of craftsmanship versus mechanized construction. It’s a far cry from the local chain theater where people go from entrance to concessions to box-like movie theater to exit, not knowing what they missed.

FLICS, or Foreign Language and International Cinema, at the Fox Theater is an experience matchless a hundred miles in any direction. Films of exceptional scope are shown that otherwise would require a drive to Los Angeles to see in a theater.

FLICS is not a first-run theater, where films are debuted after release. The approximately twice-monthly showings, usually on Fridays at 7:30 in the evening, are films that have often been in existence for years. The program is becoming more recent, yet two things are guaranteed – if it has been shown in Bakersfield, it won’t show here, and that a committee of film-lovers have spent many hours searching and cutting down to a list of 16 or 17 great films.

Phil Neufeld, a Kern County Fire Department engineer, and his wife Edna, a Kern County librarian, began FLICS at BC 23 years ago in part because they had “a bug for co-operative experiences.”

It is evident in the community of film that they have built on from that. After then Gov. Deukmejian made severe cuts to community colleges, BC raised the facility rental fee exponentially, and FLICS went elsewhere. After several moves over the years, they ended up at the Fox, where as Phil Neufeld says, “They would like to stay forever.”

FLICS is a non-profit event, and the money that they bring in – beyond the cost of operating FLICS – has been donated to the Fox Foundation and the Kern County Library Fund to purchase DVDs of many of the films shown at FLICS.

On opening night, “The Motorcycle Diaries” was screened. At times, there were collective gusts of laughter, and at other times, the tension was sensed in a room full of hundreds. The film is based on the journal of a young Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the Latin-American revolutionary and Communist rebel. The film is based before his development as “Che” and more as Ernesto, being the tale of, along with Dr. Alberto Granada, their journey across a continent to learn about themselves and life.

The night was, by all counts, a success. In the lobby and outside the theater, dozens stayed and talked about the film, talked about related things, talked about unrelated things. Then the people left into the night, many walking downtown, the lights turned off and the doors locked. It was an ad hoc community for a while, and it was vibrant at that.