CCA CINEMA

With the recent loss of crucial cinema spaces around Scotland, we wanted to highlight the film curation work of our programme partners. Our Cinema Audience Development Coordinator, Sarah Harbison, spoke to three of our cinema partners about programming at the CCA, the challenges facing Scotland’s film sector and how they hope to connect with audiences.

What inspired your festival’s programme?

Xuanlin Tham (Take One Action Film Festival):

Take One Action was founded on the belief that shared cinematic experiences can spark transformation and change. Cinema has an immense power: it carves out space for empathy, connection, and imagining new worlds together. Take One Action unfurled from an eagerness to harness this power – to bring people together, and nourish the hope and community necessary to work towards social and climate justice, in Scotland and across the world.

Ilia Ryzhenko (Samizdat Eastern European Film Festival): Films are powerful vessels for encountering different cultures, histories and ways of living. This is especially the case with Eastern European cinema, because it frequently focuses on politics and hardship in an artistically sophisticated way that relies on visual and aural poetics. In essence, we wanted to show Scottish audiences what we found to be so precious and important about the national cinemas, just as it drove many in our team to seek out more fantastic art and learn about the region.

What do you enjoy about screening at CCA Cinema?

Kuan-Ping Lui (Taiwan Film Festival):

We actually just had our first screening at CCA! Taiwan Film Festival Edinburgh is a relatively young festival, having started in 2020. With the two past years affected by COVID, this was our first festival in a while that was fully in-person. CCA Cinema opens to all kinds of programmes and the organisation has been very helpful in all aspects, from tech to ticketing. The staff are amazingly friendly!

Xuanlin Tham (Take One Action Film Festival):

As soon as we step in through the doors of the CCA, it already feels like we’ve been transported: there’s a buzz in the air, a vibrant cross-pollination of arts, culture and community. It’s a beautiful and welcoming space, and we’ve been honoured to work with the wonderful staff at the CCA who have been really supportive in facilitating our access commitments like captioned screenings and sliding scale ticketing. There’s always something exciting going on at CCA, so to be part of that ecosystem is always thrilling! We loved how Saramago concocted a za’atar cocktail to coincide with our screening of Palestinian film Foragers (we’re also massive fans of their food!)

What challenges currently face the Scottish film sector?

Kuan-Ping Lui (Taiwan Film Festival):

I think Scotland could do with more international films that might be outside audiences’ comfort-zones (such as more East Asian films, etc). These films might not yet have an audience, which is exactly why we need to show them, so we can develop an audience that could really find something they love.

Xuanlin Tham (Take One Action Film Festival):

The devastating loss of Centre for the Moving Image has thrown into stark relief just how important – but fragile – spaces for cultural cinema and arts are. Many challenges are to be found in deciding just how the sector moves forward from this, but it’s clear that a deep-rooted reckoning is needed: one that necessitates facing head-on how a relentless growth-and-profit model will always fail the arts and its people. We hope that everyone – exhibitors, funders, audiences, festivals, venues – can work together in the immense, but exciting, task of reimagining what a vibrant, diverse, sustainable film sector can look like in Scotland. With care, and with passion.

What do you hope audiences experience at your screenings?

Kuan-Ping Lui (Taiwan Film Festival):

I hope through our screenings, audiences can understand that East Asian cinemas are easily approachable, and that there is so much more to explore in the world of films by seeing through language and cultural barriers.

Ilia Ryzhenko (Samizdat Eastern European Film Festival):

We hope our audiences – whether they come from Eastern European diasporas or are Scottish film-goers – feel a deep connection with our films that makes them want to seek out more (more art, more knowledge about what inspires it). We particularly want to make Eastern Europeans living in Scotland feel welcome and enter an environment where their culture is celebrated and faithfully and thoughtfully represented. At our last year’s festival, the additional objective was also to spotlight Ukrainian cinema, educating British spectators about the country’s cinematic tradition as well.

Xuanlin Tham (Take One Action Film Festival):

We aim to take creative, exploratory, and caring approaches to our screenings and events – our screening of Foragers at CCA, for example, was a multifaceted evening of music, dance, spoken word, films, and food sharing, presenting a rich palette of engagement that people really valued. But regardless what shape that takes, we always hope that our screenings leave audiences with a spark of feeling, no matter how small or profound, that goes on to ignite possibilities for connection, transformation, and togetherness long after we meet.