"Thanks again & goodbye!"

Some of the saddest words I've beheld, an epitaph I found tacked on a door on the campus of Temple University in Philadelphia in the mid-1990s. It jolted me to read the self-penned obituary of the "Cinematheque," even one unrelated to the Cleveland Cinematheque.

Still very much alive, the latter marks its 20th anniversary this weekend as an alternative film exhibition space in the Cleveland Institute of Art in University Circle.

Nobody, not even Henry Langlois, has a monopoly on the word "cinematheque" (French for film library). Still, my Philadelphia story should convey the virtue of appreciating what's right in front of you while you still have it.

No, Cinematheque founder-director John Ewing does not plan to close forever next June. In 2000-2001, in fact, the Cleveland Cinematheque tallied its most profitable year on record, during which it presented 262 features and 199 short subjects, selling more than 37,000 tickets in what's been called one of the finest continuous pageants of indie-film exhibition, revivals and rarities between New York and Chicago.

"It was amazing," says Tim Harry, Ewing's assistant. "We were in the black. I remember I used to walk in, and it was like, "Oh, another hundred people? That's nice.'"

And now?

"Attendance has been down a lot this past couple years, but I don't think we're unique in that," says Ewing. "Film exhibition in general [has declined]. Places like the Cinematheque have suffered a downturn in attendance.

"I can't say I'm really concerned. The movie business has always been a cyclical business. And if we just wait it out, things will improve."

When mainstream Hollywood got hit by a box-office slump last year, it was fun to imagine patrons spurning the assembly-line sequels, superheroes, TV adaptations and Michael Bay noisemakers and marching to indie-revival houses instead. That's how it works, said Ewing, who hears tales of woe from independent cinemas across the country. "Everybody in this kind of art-film realm is kind of struggling."

Culprits? Competition from Netflix and the DVD home-theater. Internet downloads to video iPods and cellular phones. And too much product.

There have been, well, shitabytes of new independent "films," done with desktop-PC editing suites and Circuit City handycams, served to an indifferent public by the digital C.B. DeMilles graduated by schools nationwide in insupportable numbers (The Cleveland Institute of Art itself no less guilty).

Ewing filters out all the pixel precipitate by making the Cinematheque as strictly film as possible, running 35mm and 16mm celluloid. Even local directors whose work would be screened at the Cinematheque at cost must deliver a film print. When Ewing and Harry set aside a smaller chamber at the CIA a few years ago as the "DVD Den," a digital-projection lounge, it was a conclusive flop.

So film will be the medium on Saturday, the official 20th anniversary, with the customary two-films-in-one-night. First at 7 p.m. is the 1954 Japanese comedy-drama An Inn at Osaka, one of Ewing's personal favorites. Then comes a 9:30 p.m. advance screening of Michel Gondry's hallucinatory The Science of Sleep, one of the most widely anticipated alterna-films of the year.

Arrive early at 6:30 p.m., and projectionist Les Vince — who, along with Tom Sedlak, has been threading and splicing for Ewing since the beginning — will present a slide show of great Cinematheque moments over the past two decades.

Ewing, a Canton native and 1973 graduate of Denison University, actually started showing foreign and independent films in University Circle on the Case campus in July 1985, realizing a dream he'd had since the late '70s. A Gund Foundation grant allowed Ewing to move from CWRU to rented space at the CIA.

"When I saw the institute auditorium I said this is a perfect place — heated, air-conditioned. That was the best decision I probably ever made from a professional angle. All of a sudden the Plain Dealer started running us, and we were a legitimate venture."

Creative programming at the Cinematheque has included a live visit from stop-motion special-effects maestro Ray Harryhausen, the American premiere of the landmark documentary Comic Book Confidential (with Harvey Pekar and Paul Malvrides joining director Ron Mann in person), and Lakewood émigré and cult-film champion Michael Weldon presenting a "Psychotronic Film Weekend" in 1986. In 1993 Ewing held perhaps the first-ever U.S. career retrospective on Peter Jackson, long before The Lord of the Rings.

Not exactly creative programming — but vividly remembered by Tim Harry and former assistant director Molly Beck — was the terrorist threat at the showing of the Balkans-war drama Bosna! in those pre-9/11 days when such things could be taken in stride, somewhat.

"I think that was on a Thursday night," Harry recalls, "and I was setting up the box office, and Molly said, "We had a bomb threat today.' I said "WHAT?!' She said, "We had a bomb threat, but don't worry about it.' I said, "Don't you think it's a PRETTY FUCKING ALARMING thing if you have got a bomb threat?' I was not very happy with Molly and John."

Death figured in one of Molly Beck's other stories, about having to chauffeur Filipino director Lino Baroka to the airport after a personal appearance. He refused to use a seatbelt.

"I said, "It's the law, you have to wear your seatbelt.' He said, "Oh, nobody wears their seatbelts in Manila.'" And they had a nice conversation about the Marcos family and George Hamilton. A few years later Beck read that Baroka had been killed in the Philippines in a car wreck.

During the shooting of the current The Oh in Ohio, the Cinematheque auditorium doubled as the screening room for some of the dailies. Actress Parker Posey was reportedly impressed by the Cinematheque and its schedule, but so far has not made good on a vow to come back.

Nonetheless, despite lackluster admissions, despite a Parker Posey-shaped hole in our broken hearts, John Ewing heroically looks ahead to the fall. The Cinematheque will host a retrospective on Pedro Almodovar, the Danish Pusher trilogy and early rarities from Jean-Luc Godard. And, for a let's-see-you-do-that-on-video-iPod, a revival of Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr's seven-hour long Satantango.

Just the usual Cinematheque stuff.

"I'm not one of those guys who does something different just for it's own sake," says Ewing. "We've kind of made it work for 20 years."

Or, on the whole, would you rather be in Philadelphia?