Kyle Kuhns’ fondly remembers going to the movies with his grandmother. 

As a child and teen in Salem, he was a big fan of the Spider-Man movies with Tobey Maguire, and always loved a soapy rom-com.

Now, a movie he helped make will have a special showing at Salem Cinema.

“DOIN’ IT,” written by and starring comedian and YouTuber Lilly Singh, will have two free screenings at the Salem theater this week. The showtimes are Friday, Sept. 26, and Saturday, Sept. 27, at 8:30 p.m., and there will be ticketed shows through next week. Claim a free spot or purchase a ticket for a later date on the Salem Cinema website.

The comedy film stars Singh as a new sex education teacher who comes from a conservative Indian family and has no sexual experience. Kuhns served as one of the film’s executive producers.

“Lilly has been working on this project for the better part of seven years,” Kuhns said. She was first introduced to a version from writer Neel Patel.

“(Patel’s version) was very different than the feature that we ended up making, but there was a little seedling of something in there that she really gravitated towards, which was, basically: What does a sex comedy look like from a perspective that’s not like Steve Carell and ‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin?’” Kuhns said.

The free showings are courtesy of Kuhns’ managing and marketing agency, 03 Media, of which Singh is a longtime client. 

Born and raised in Keizer, Kuhns graduated from McNary High School in 2011 and spent a year at Willamette University before convincing his family he needed to try his luck in Los Angeles.

As a Starbucks barista for two years, Kuhns saw a familiar rotation of regulars who worked in and around the entertainment industry. One, he said, used to come in sometimes twice a day and got to know him. The man said Kuhns had a good head on his shoulders, and ended up offering Kuhns a job as an executive assistant.

That boss ended up allowing Kuhns to shift his schedule around and try his hand at starting his own marketing company, XX Artists. Over a decade, that company expanded to dozens of clients and 175 staff before he sold it in 2022. In 2020, Kuhns was named one of Forbes’ Top 30 Under 30 list.

One of his first clients was Singh. His first experience producing was her 2016 documentary “A Trip to Unicorn Island.”

“(DOIN’ IT) feels very full-circle in the sense that she was one of my very first clients, and my first full-length feature that has a theatrical distribution across the states is also in partnership with her,” Kuhns said.

Kuhns’ said that, as an executive producer on “DOIN’ IT,” he was involved in the creative process from filming — about three weeks in Toronto — to distribution.

“Since we’re not a studio film, we have a hand in literally every marketing asset, every theater that we’re trying to get into,” Kuhns said.

For Kuhns, it was important that one of those theaters was Salem Cinema. When he became more of “a film nerd” in high school, it’s where he’d find himself watching obscure films that weren’t distributed to Regal or AMC Theatres.

“When I knew that our film was being distributed, it was personally important for me for it to play in my hometown,” he said.

He worked with the distributor to secure the free showings, and for it to play at Salem Cinema for another full week.

“While we have big marquee theaters and national chains carrying the film across the states this weekend, I think that places like Salem Cinema are so important to kids like I was to have access to films that they maybe wouldn’t otherwise,” he said.

Kuhns is excited that some of his friends and family will be able to see the film in a theater.

Kuhns has already seen the movie with multiple audiences, including fan showings, and said that the reactions have made him very proud of Singh. 

“Lilly has far and away done more work than anyone to get this film made and so, first and foremost, it’s made me just so proud to be a decade-long partner of hers in her work,” he said. 

He said many of the biggest laughs come from improvised moments, a product of the 2023 writers’ strike that didn’t allow for any script edits during production or pre-production.

He’s also enjoyed seeing the audience connect with the representation on screen.

“Although it’s a comedy about a 30-something year old virgin that’s assigned to teach sex ed, there is a lot of universal as well as culturally specific messages that underlie a lot of this in terms of shame and in terms of access to sexual education,” he said. “That makes it feel worth it, just as much as the laughs. Hearing people say that they feel seen.”

Contact reporter Abbey McDonald: [email protected] or 503-575-1251.