LOSING INDEPENDENT CINEMAS

CMI’S COLLAPSE SIGNALS A STARK FUTURE FOR UK INDEPENDENT EXHIBITION.

On the morning of what seemed like a regular Thursday in early October, 102 people employed by the Centre for the Moving Image (CMI) were told the company was ceasing trade, effective immediately. That meant their jobs, two independent cinemas – the Filmhouse in Edinburgh and the Belmont Filmhouse in Aberdeen – plus the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), the world’s longestcontinually-running film festival (until that very point), were suddenly gone, all in the space of two swift minutes.

Within the hour, news spread on social media. People expressed their shock at the lack of notice given to both staff and the public. Many claimed they would have tried all within

RAFA SALES ROSS their reach to rescue the institutions that meant so much to them. Filmmakers flocked to Twitter to say how Filmhouse and the EIFF were fundamental in their journey to falling in love, and eventually making, films. Directors such as Mark Cousins, Ben Sharrock, and Edgar Wright pleaded for any available support to try to reverse the fateful blow.

The closure of Filmhouse cinemas and EIFF is a bleak omen for the British independent exhibition sector. Despite the devastating confluence of a global pandemic followed by an ever-urgent cost-of-living crisis being labelled as the final executioner, the collapse of CMI is a sombre consequence of years of neglect by public bodies of independent cultural institutions. This pattern, which was allowed to stand for many years before audiences were asked to wear face masks indoors, has now claimed the direct livelihood of many, and the cultural livelihood of many more.

Communities now find themselves bereft of spaces inherently concocted as safe harbours for those who may struggle to find one otherwise — spaces with accessibility, inclusion and cultural democracy at their very core. Aberdeen, a city with a population of around 200,000, no longer has an independent cinema. For those who are comfortably nested in the fragile certainty something like this could never happen in London, this is your official wake-up call.

‘A BLEAK OMEN FOR THE BRITISH INDEPENDENT SECTOR’