Filmhouse announces opening programme
Filmhouse reopens with a programme of films released during their closure and some special screenings, with tickets at half price or less
In just over two weeks, Filmhouse will open its doors to the public for the first time in over two years, and they’re kicking off with a programme of films they didn’t get to screen during that closure. For the first week, standard tickets are half price (£6 rather than £12), with discounts also applied to all their concession tickets. It’s a great opportunity to have a nosey around the renovated cinema and cafe, try out the new, more generously proportioned cinema seating and see some excellent films you might have missed at bargain prices.
On 27 June, the first film to open the new-look cinema is an appropriately nostalgic one: Giuseppe Tornatore's 1988 coming-of-age drama and unabashed celebration of cinema, Cinema Paradiso. The opening day also features a special screening of the recent Scottish documentary Make it to Munich, which will be follow by a Q&A with director Martyn Robertson, the film’s subject, Ethan Walker, and former Motherwell, Chelsea, Everton and Scotland winger Pat Nevin, who’ll lead the Q&A. Another Q&A to look out for is with Edinburgh director Matt Palmer: he’ll be speaking after presenting a double-bill of his 2018 thriller Calibre, starring Jack Lowden and Tony Curran, and his recent horror Fear Street: Prom Queen. The double-bill is free but ticketed.
Another special screening on the opening weekend is Lotte Reiniger’s classic 1926 animation The Adventures of Prince Achmed, which is screening with a live score from S!nk; the acoustic trio first performed this live score at Filmhouse back in 2016 as part of a special commission by the cinema. As well as reminding audiences of its capacity to host live music scores, the cinema will be flexing its projection muscles by screening several films on celluloid: Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer on 70mm, and Robert Eggers’ horror remake Nosferatu on 35mm.
Elsewhere, Filmhouse are using this opening week to remind audiences of the films the cinema couldn’t screen during their closure – films like Payal Kapadia’s tender Mumbai-set drama All We Imagine As Light, Gints Zilbalodis's Oscar-winning animation Flow and Alice Rohrwacher’s inventive tomb-raiding romance La chimera. And some of the films programmed in this opening week – titles like Naples crime drama Nostalgia or knotty Galician thriller The Beasts – didn’t play in Edinburgh at all during their initial release, according to Filmhouse.
“Looking into the films that simply didn’t make it on to Edinburgh cinema screens at all during Filmhouse’s closure only hammered home the need for it in this great City of Culture,” says Rod White, Filmhouse’s Programming Director. “It’s been tough – whilst Filmhouse was closed – to watch some brilliant films come and go from cinemas without being able to offer a venue to watch them in. The good news is, Filmhouse has never been a better place to watch a film (and talk about it afterwards!) than it is today and we simply cannot wait to welcome everyone back, or, for the first time! ”
To see the full lineup of films and to purchase tickets, head to filmhouse.org.uk