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AIPROPX ReportIndieWire · 1h ago
New Bruin Theatre Team Splits as Lease Signer Faces Renewed Racism and Antisemitism Allegations
IndieWire has learned they're already fracturing — with at least two people now exiting the project amid allegations facing Rui Pereira , the Canadian theater operator who signed the Bruin's lease back in July.
The allegations currently destabilizing the new L.A. revival project originated thousands of miles away, and years before Pereira set his sights on Westwood. Pereira began operating Toronto's independent Kingsway Theatre in 2009 and later reopened the city's historic Humber Cinema in 2011 , where a dispute with his landlord ultimately landed in court before the theater closed and was demolished years later . Related Stories Jason Reitman Was Ready to Spend Millions to Save the Historic Bruin Theatre. Can a Scrappy New Team Reopen It by October? Indie Films Should Tour Like a Band
Across those years, Pereira's conduct generated controversies and public disputes throughout Toronto's film community . And in recent weeks, concerns about that history — including accusations of nonpayment and unlicensed screenings at the Kingsway — have traveled west through something of an industry whisper network, increasingly spilling into public view.
At the center of these claims is a pattern of alleged online harassment, bullying, and intimidation, described to IndieWire by more than a dozen sources who encountered Pereira over the years.
The Kingsway operator is accused of making racist, antisemitic, and other inflammatory remarks — with screenshots reviewed by IndieWire showing the Canadian theater's verified account calling people "fake Jews," "sub human devils," and "murderous filthy vile hasbara fake Jew scumbags." He is accused of telling one user to "Go back to Poland"; and responding to a photograph depicting a swastika painted outside a Jewish family's home by calling it "the proper symbol for zionazis."
Pereira categorically denied the allegations of racism and antisemitism in an email to IndieWire; he also denied allegations of unlicensed film screenings, nonpayment, and other business disputes at the Kingsway, and rejected the broader characterization of his Toronto tenure as controversial. He maintained that legal matters involving both the Kingsway and his former Humber Cinema were either resolved or confidential, and characterized attempts to generate controversy around his theaters as "dishonest and disingenuous."
"Any accusations of racial discrimination or the use of the blanket term of antisemitism against the Kingsway Theatre are completely false," he said. Pereira attributed the accusations to what he described as online harassment directed at the Kingsway and its staff during screenings of the Palestinian films "No Other Land" and "Palestine 36."
Sources also described to IndieWire direct threats and an alarming pattern of retaliation in which Pereira allegedly continues targeting some critics online for months and, in some cases, even years after their initial disputes.
One controversy centering race that Pereira and the Kingsway have continued to revisit online dates back to 2017, when Canadian actress Oluniké Adeliyi accused the theater of racial discrimination after Pereira called police during a dispute over its backpack policy. Pereira denied that race played any role in the incident at the time and called Adeliyi's account a " false narrative ." (The actress did not respond to IndieWire's request for comment.)
IndieWire has reviewed screenshots of the Kingsway account repeatedly mocking Adeliyi's career as recently as last week. And, in a screenshot from 2024, the same account tagged Adeliyi in a post resurfacing what was then a seven-year-old news story about the Kingsway dispute, asking her, "How is the 'acting' going?"
That's after years of other remarks about Black people have been attributed to the verified Kingsway account. In screenshots reviewed by IndieWire, the account told one user that "Non plantation 'blacks' are not welcome"; told actor Tim Russ, "You were a KING on VOYAGER now you are back on the plantation"; and told journalist Don Lemon, "Trump is definitely more black than you."
In another exchange beneath a photograph of 2024 U.S. presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, the Kingsway account asked, "Which of the two is black?" And in a screenshot showing remarks from August 3, 2024, the Kingsway replied to then-Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, Harris' husband, asking, "How is the anal rape club going?"
The controversy reached the Bruin's own social media account over the weekend
On the night of Friday, August 21, an anonymous account on X (username: brunometti) struck a match that resulted in a conflict between Pereira and 26-year-old theater activist Ben Steinberg , an L.A. local and former collaborator on the Bruin Theatre restoration project. The anonymous account resurfaced old Canadian news coverage, circulated screenshots from the Kingsway's social media history, and raised concerns about Pereira's alleged racism and antisemitism.
Three reply posts came within minutes of each other from the Bruin's official X account. After the anonymous user warned that Pereira was "coming to Los Angeles," calling him a "monster" and urging people in Los Angeles to research his Toronto theater, the official Bruin account replied with the Kingsway's location: "Danforth and Dawes Rd right next to Shoppers World!" Then, in response to the accusation that Pereira was antisemitic, the Bruin account tagged Steinberg's popular Save Your Cinema campaign and replied: "You mean anti-septic?"
When IndieWire contacted Steinberg via email on Monday to ask who had made the posts and why they'd been deleted, he went on record distancing himself from both Pereira's actions and the statements made through the Bruin account. By Tuesday, Steinberg had left the project and announced his departure through Save Your Cinema on X. Pereira did not respond to IndieWire's inquiry about whether he had authored those three posts.
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