Succession star Brian Cox has backed a £1.25m fundraising campaign to reopen Edinburgh’s Filmhouse cinema.
The historic cinema on the city’s Lothian Road shut its doors in October when its parent company, the Centre for the Moving Image (CMI), went into administration.
Newly-formed charity Filmhouse (Edinburgh) Ltd and Caledonian Heritable, the new owners of the building, have now agreed an interim lease to enable a period of fundraising for essential refurbishment works.
Once the refurbishments have been carried out, the charity will enter a 21-year lease with Caledonian Heritable and the venue will operate as an independent cinema celebrating the diversity of filmmaking worldwide.
In a video message of support for the campaign, Cox said what happened to the original Filmhouse was “tragic for many reasons”.
Speaking while taking part in a BFI event, he said: “We’ve got a great industry up there and the Filmhouse was very important to us particularly during the festival, but also as a community centre for artists who were particularly interested in film, and thank god they’re managing to save it.
“So keep those doors open and let the Filmhouse thrive as it should”.
Trainspotting’s Ewan Bremner and fellow Scottish stars Jack Lowden, Alan Cumming and Harmony Rose Bremner have recorded video messages supporting the campaign.
STV NewsThe campaign, which has an initial target of £250,000, has surpassed the £100,000 mark.
The Belmont Filmhouse in Aberdeen was also run by CMI and it also shut last October.
Aberdeen City Council has since agreed a preferred operator for plans to bring the cinema back to life.
Belmont Community Cinema Ltd has set out plans to reopen the building as an independent, not-for-profit cinema, operated and programmed from Aberdeen, which focuses on four key areas – cultural film programming, education and filmmaking, community, and customer experience.
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