Filmhouse: Former staff launch reopening campaign

It’s been a dark year for Scottish cinemas since the brutal closures of Edinburgh Filmhouse and its sister venue, the Belmont in Aberdeen, but today there are a couple of shafts of light on the horizon for both cinemas. 

New Filmhouse charity and fundraising campaign

A new Filmhouse fundraising campaign, headed by four former Filmhouse staff members, has begun with the aim of re-opening the cinema by next year. The Filmhouse on Lothian Road was purchased in April by property management company Caledonian Heritable; the building went up for sale in October 2022 when the CMI, the umbrella company for both the Filmhouse and Belmont, went into administration. 

It was feared the Filmhouse might just be turned into a pub, but we’re told a new Filmhouse charity formed by these four ex-staff members – former programme manager James Rice, former Head of Programming Rod White, former CEO Ginnie Atkinson and former Head of Technical David Boyd – has struck a deal with Caledonian Heritable, allowing for an interim lease of the building to allow a period of fundraising for essential refurbishment works to the cinemas. In the meantime, Caledonian Heritable will upgrade the fabric of the building and has gifted the building’s bespoke projection equipment to the Filmhouse charity to use when the cinema reopens. 

The Filmhouse fundraising campaign, titled Open the Doors, has an initial goal of £250,000 for essential improvements; the campaign ultimately aims to raise £1.25 million, which we’re told will be used to refurbish the cinema and help the group enter a 21-year lease with Caledonian Heritable. They have already received £60,000 in funding from Screen Scotland to support planning and development work in the short term, and, at time of publication, have raised just under £11,000 on their first day of fundraising.

Not only would this re-opened Filmhouse operate independently as a cultural cinema, it also plans to run its in-house café-bar to support the charity. Once reopened, we’re told the venue would work to “develop new audiences in Edinburgh, to support a wide range of local and national film festivals, and to deliver cultural cinema in all its diversity.” 

“This is a significant step on the journey towards restoring cultural cinema provision for the city,” says Atkinson. “Filmhouse is more than just a cinema – it’s a home for cinema lovers and for film festivals and is proud of its track record in the area of film education, which would continue. We are delighted to be able to launch the fundraising campaign with the goal of opening the doors to a newly refurbished cinema building in 2024.”

For more information on the campaign and to donate, head to crowdfunder.co.uk/filmhouse-open-the-doors

Community group to reopen Belmont Cinema in Aberdeen

There’s good news in the North East of Scotland too. In Aberdeen, the Belmont Community Cinema has been working hard to help reopen the Belmont, which was operated by the CMI but is ultimately owned by Aberdeen City Council.

The council have agreed to this community group’s plan to re-open the Belmont as an independent, not-for-profit cinema. The group plans to begin refurbishment of the cinema in April next year, and open a few months later in July or August. 

For more detail on the plans, head to belmontcinema.co.uk