L O C A T I O N
The people’s palace Community cinema provides a lifeline to film in areas where mainstream theatres don’t reach. CTC’s Paul Wilmott describes the initiative that brings film to the big screen at the Royston Picture Palace.
T
HERE
ARE
MORE
THAN
1300
community-led cinemas in the UK. These range across a broad spectrum, from film societies and clubs, through pop-up cinemas, school and university student cinemas, screenings in village
halls and arts centres, to youth and community centres. One such community initiative is Saffron Screen, set up in 2006 as a community cinema for Saffron Walden, in Essex, where the previous cinemas had closed in the 1960s (The Walden) and 1975 (The Plaza). Saffron Screen is a not-forprofit organisation run by a number of part-time staff and many local volunteers. Our aim from day one was to have a professionally run cinema (with 35mm projection, surround sound, and large fixed screen with masking) whilst accepting that there would be some limitations due to the premises being in the local County High School and thus utilising a shared space. Fast forward 14 years and we are now running mostly digital (we still have a Kinoton FP20 35mm projector which we use occasionally) with Dolby 7.1 sound. Being based in a school limits our daytime screenings and we do not always have access in the evenings during the week. However, we still manage 30-40 screenings per month.
www.cinematech.today
069_MAR20_ROYSTON.indd 69
0 3 / 2 0
>
6 9
15/02/2020 10:05
