Revised plans for £5 million Filmhouse take shape
Revised proposlas for a new Filmhouse in Festival Square have been revealed.
Now the plans - shaped and formed by online consultation - have been lodged with The City of Edinburgh Council.
The £4.8 million building is intended as a centre for Filmhouse and The Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Ken Hay, CEO of the Centre for the Moving Image, which incorporates both of these bodies said the plans represented a lot of effort over the years.
Rather than use the former church building on Lothian Road there has been talk for decades of moving. Mr Hay said in a video produced by Filmhouse CInema that it was recognised quickly that the building was not going to be appropriate for the long term. He said: "Simple things like disability access stopped being a nice thing to have and became absolutely critical to have. Adapting the 190-year-old Georgian church with its various add-on buildings to be fully accessible was just one of the issues."
The new Filmhouse will also have spaces for community engagement and learning, talent and skills development, film programming and audience engagement, innovation and enterprise, and networking to benefit both Edinburgh and Scotland's film industry.
The revised plan includes a reduction in height with improved access arrangements inside, and detailed proposals for managing the public space in what is regarded as the Festival Square.
All the five auditoria (with double the number of seats) will be on one level underneath the Square.
There will be a rooftop terrace and public viewpoint, a larger café bar and separate restaurant, and state of the art cinemas.
Asked about the impact of Covid-19 on the Filmhouse project, Mr Hay said that hopefully we will get over the impact of Covid-19 and that the new Filmhouse will take about five years to complete.
But he is also confident that people will return to cinemas. He said: "Nothing beats sitting in a big dark space with a bunch of strangers watching a film you have no idea about. It plays out in front of you in that communal experience of enjoyment, fear or terror, excitement or dismay."
Author Irvine Welsh added his support to the new project.
He said: “Edinburgh can’t remain bereft of cultural ambition.
"A custom built Filmhouse would put the city on a par with some of the great cinema capitals of the world.
"It would be a marvellous resource for our community and provide a fitting home for the world’s oldest international film festival.
"Why settle for being an also ran when you can be one of the very best?”