Interest
Edinburgh Filmhouse May Return
posted on by Andrew Osmond
The BBC website reports that the current owners of the Edinburgh Filmhouse have agreed a lease with a charity which aims to fundraise and then reopen the cinema.
The Edinburgh Filmhouse was the venue for the screenings in the Edinburgh leg of the Scotland Loves Anime festival, from when the festival began in 2010 through to the 2021 event. (The 2020 edition of the festival was online-only due to the Covid pandemic.)
The 2022 edition of the Scotland Loves Anime festival had already been scheduled at the Filmhouse when the venue stopped trading in October that year. The charity which ran it, Centre for the Moving Image, said that it had experienced rising costs and also reduced trade caused by the Covid pandemic. The 2022 Scotland Loves Anime festival was transferred to the nearby Cameo Picturehouse cinema.
The Edinbugh Filmhouse building was bought by Caledonian Heritable, which also owns the Dome, Ryan's Bar and the Theatre Royal in Edinburgh
Caledonian Heritable has now leased the building to a charity that was formed by four former Filmhouse staff. This charity aims to raise an initial amount of one and a quarter million pounds, before reopening the Edinburgh Filmhouse in 2024 with a 21-year lease. The reopened Filmhouse would be an independent venue, supported by a café bar.
The charity has also been given £60,000 by Screen Scotland to support its planning and development work.
According to the BBC report, Caledonian Heritable had already started "a programme of upgrades to the fabric of the building." It will give all projection equipment to the new Filmhouse,
