5 minute read
Lights, camera, action! Community Cinemas bring the magic of Hollywood to North Herts
Due to the rise in popularity of community cinemas run by local people for local people, you are likely to be just a walk or short drive away from the magic of the movies in your home town or village.
We talked to four North Herts based community cinemas to find out more.
Lilley Community Cinema Club
Janet Richards, in charge of membership and marketing for the cinema club, wrote in to tell us more.
“We first started out five years ago when Lilley Parish Council was gifted a projector by a resident who was leaving the village; this got several members thinking that it would be a lovely idea to set up a film club. We show our films at least 12 times a year at The Cassel Hall in Lilley and aim to include a selection of films from a broad range of genres. Our eight committee members are all local volunteers. We love film, want to share this experience with others and have met lots of new people and made some wonderful friends.
“Some of our members are elderly, or on their own and we provide a place that they feel welcome and safe. We feel we offer a totally different cinema experience to a multiplex. We have a fully licenced bar and snacks and our members come along and chat before the film and during the interval. We have donated the projector, screen and speakers to the village hall, so that anybody who hires the hall can use them and we regularly donate to other local causes, including an annual quiz for the benefit of the community.
“Two standout occasions for us at our Cinema Club were screening the 2013 Judi Dench movie Philomena – we invited the real Philomena and her daughter who lived nearby and they kindly agreed to hold a Q&A session after the film, during which we learnt more about her fascinating life. The other was when we screened The Greatest Showman and had audience members ranging from the age of 8 to 80, singing along to the songs; it was such a wonderful atmosphere!
“We are immensely proud of our Club which celebrates its 5th Anniversary in October, and are busy planning how we can mark this event.”
Royston Picture Palace
Geraint Burnell, Manager of Royston Picture Palace and Royston Town Centre Manager, dropped us a line to tell us about it.
"From the day I started working in my role as Town Manager, people kept saying to me, “Why isn’t there a cinema in Royston?” So in 2008 I proposed launching a Business Improvement District (BID) in Royston to raise funding for local projects, including a community cinema. This was launched in April 2009 and we approached Royston Town Council with a plan for them to refurbish the largely unused Town Hall and for us to construct a digital cinema in the upstairs hall. Four years later, the Royston Picture Palace screened its first film.
“We have a Box Office, refreshment kiosk, Dolby sound system, retractable wide screen and 132 seats for movie goers. Films are screened 4-6 weeks after their UK release and we regularly screen films on Friday and Saturday evenings with monthly Saturday matinees. The quality of the picture and the sound are at least as good, if not better than a multiplex (our sound system is superb - we sold out Bohemian Rhapsody eight times!).
“At a busy screening, most people meet someone they know and over 50% of our tickets sales are to Senior Citizens who, in some instances, may find it difficult or impossible to travel to another town to see a film. With us, they can just stroll down the hill, or take a short drive and park for free within 50 metres of the cinema. We are entirely staffed by volunteers, who do what they do to support the cinema and keep it working.”
Hitchin Films
We spoke to Tim Ray, Founder of Hitchin Films, to find out more.
“We started during the Hitchin Festival in 2006 over a conversation in a pub about the lack of a cinema in Hitchin. We are based in the 74 seat Queen Mother Theatre in Hitchin. There is no membership required - people can just turn up, buy a ticket and watch the film. We screen films twice a month with a focus on the best of contemporary and foreign language films, with an occasional classic and some interesting guest speakers.
“We have six volunteers, all from Hitchin, who cover the role of tickets/door, bar and projection and we all contribute ideas for the programme. Hitchin Films is a not for profit organisation and any money we make goes back into running Hitchin Films. Also, we support other community and charity groups who want to put on a film by lending them equipment and our expertise.
“A few special moments include in 2010, helping The Queen Mother Theatre to raise funds to improve the facilities. We worked with film critic Barry Norman one evening and had the experience of seeing Barry and broadcaster Richard Whitmore watch their Morecambe and Wise performance together for the first time – they were beaming! We also had director Ken Loach (pictured above) come and talk about his film “I Daniel Blake“. That was a fascinating evening of film and politics chat and no one thought he was really coming until he walked in the door.
“We would like to say thank you to the Queen Mother Theatre for giving us the chance and for believing in us enough to upgrade the studio and to our audience for their continued support and encouragement.”
Weston Village Hall Cinema Club
Hilary Townrow, Trustee and Manager of Weston Village Hall dropped us a line about their cinema club:
“The Village Hall committee were considering fundraising events for the hall around three years ago and following on from receiving positive feedback from other local cinema clubs, decided to see if it could work for Weston. We screen films six times a year on alternate months, and decided from the outset that we would vary the genres to hopefully please everyone. We started with a comedy - Bridget Jones’s Baby which was a huge success.
“We now have a solid core of membership of around 70 people. Obviously not everyone can come along each time, but we normally reckon to have 50 people at a screening. We rely on our very willing volunteers and committee members to run the Club. We have a core of people who love running the bar and creating our very popular ‘cocktail of the evening’, setting up the audio visual equipment and setting out the chairs.”
“It’s a lovely social evening and a good meeting point for friends. Cinema Club provides a social event in the village where people can meet their friends and talk about local issues before and after the screening. Screenings are fundraising events where we raise money for the village hall from the bar takings. The subscriptions to the Club go towards funding the licence, films and audio visual equipment and we have installed a specialist sound system in the village hall so the screenings are extremely professional.“
