Cine North May 2019 - News from the Venues
First Season Overachievers - Burton Pidsea
One of our newest venues rounded off their first season with the Cine North network by screening the hugely successful Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.
Mike McGwinn and his team have done a smashing job of building an audience in Burton Pidsea, with their average attendance being over 60 people by season end. Mike has also helped promote his screenings through the new Burton Pidsea Memorial Hall website (Burton Pidsea Memorial Hall Website).
The venue will launch their second season in October 2019, with Mike stating: "I already have a couple of superb films lined up for the new season".
Cine North the Place to Premiere
It was great to see our Masham Town Hall venue being included in the preview screenings for Richard Heap's Northern-set drama The Runaways. The film is due for theatrical release in the Autumn and stars Mark Addy and Tara Fitzgerald.
Nick Reed, co-ordinator at Masham, was able to host the director for an after-screening Q&A, in which Richard "charmed the audience". The Masham audience found the film to be "a nice little piece of work and the children are fantastic". Due to the warm reception Richard received, we are likely going to have priority distribution on this title.
Please contact Rohan (rohan@edenarts.co.uk) to request this title for the Autumn season. Also, if any venues are interested in screening other titles with local relevance, we are able to approach filmmakers to see if they would be willing to do Q&As or allow preview screenings.
New Kits Strengthen the Network
Grange-over-Sands - who have been one of the major success stories of the last year - have invested in purchasing their own kit, largely through revenues generated by their Cine North screenings. From July onwards Roger Handley and his team will be using this new kit for regular monthly screenings at the Victoria Hall.
Likewise, Brough Memorial Hall have begun to explore ways of funding their own kit purchase, enabling the long-standing Cumbrian venue to join the likes of Appleby and Kirkby Stephen in becoming a self-sufficient Cine North venue.
The network will shortly be promoting opportunities for new venues to come on to the scheme in Cumbria, which in large part is due to success stories like these.
The Cine North network has recently been able to expand into Northern Lancashire and Redcar & Cleveland, with the addition of two new kit hubs at Carnforth Civic Hall and East Cleveland Arts, Loftus.
Venue organisers Jim Grisenthwaite and Barry Tighe have swiftly become cornerstones of the Cine North community of venues. Jim has helped to facilitate access to equipment for new venues at Borwick & Priest Hutton, Crosscrakes and Hutton Roof. While Barry has begun screenings at both Loftus Town Hall and Loftus Old Co-op Building, with a focus on providing a wide range of films for all areas of the community. There are also plans in Loftus to take screenings out into the surrounding communities, as well as providing great initiatives, such as Summer Children's screenings and Dementia-friendly screenings.
As well as these new additions to the network, we are also pleased to welcome back Leyburn Arts, who will be screening a selection of titles booked with us over the coming months. Leyburn Arts was one of the early success stories for the network and became an independent screening venue in 2016. However, thanks to some of the titles we can offer them (including Colette, The Favourite and The Mule), Leyburn have come back on to the network as a partner venue.
