In March 2017, my then employer, Belmont Filmhouse, took the decision to close our cafe bar.
To those of us on the ground, it became immediately apparent that the decision would leave lasting scars on the cinema. The cafe bar was well loved, even if it sometimes wasn’t well used.
In the aftermath of the closure, Belmont lost around 15% of its yearly ticket sales, and our paid annual membership sales reduced by one third. Bar hire income was tougher to come by, having lost the skills needed to run such events. The bar space began to look unloved and empty.
The cafe bar had always been a unique difference when compared to the multiplexes of the city, and – along with the film programme, event hires, and our community work – helped the Belmont cinema stand out in Aberdeen.
The problem was that people didn’t spend quite enough money in the space directly. We later realised that that was, in a sense, neither here, nor there; the bar drew people into the cinema, even if they didn’t always buy a drink.
Kino Bar, a well-loved combined screening and bar experience, emerged from the rubble, but the wider damage was already done. Audience attendance struggled against pre-2017 figures, a consequence not accounted for in pre-decision financials.
Audience members asked for the bar to be reopened in every customer survey issued until the business closed fully in 2022. People felt they hadn’t been listened to.
That a renewed food and beverage offering takes an important place in the feasibility studies published by Mustard Studio recently, designed to guide Aberdeen City Council in their next moves with the Belmont, is unsurprising and heartening. It might be the first step in mending a broken relationship with a committed audience for any new operator.
‘Film programming is as much science as art’
Following on from the feasibility study, Aberdeen City Council last week voted to commence a tender process to bring the Belmont back into use. For some, the nearly eight months since its closure in October must have felt excruciatingly long, but I’ve been impressed at the steady progress in the process to bring the cinema back online.
This progress is due to the hard work of many within the council itself, and the dedication and passion of those involved with the Save The Belmont Cinema campaign. People who have given their time to ensuring that Aberdeen’s voice for an independent cinema stays strong have made sure that a reopening has remained a priority for councillors. They’ve kept it on the agenda, and should be commended for doing so.
That the council vote has happened in the same week as Cannes Film Festival leaves me with a sense of serendipity. Although the multiplexes will continue to pick up larger releases, reading news from Cannes this year could easily have left me wondering how I might see some of the “highbrow” films duking it out for the Palme d’Or, or even something like Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. I’m now hopeful we’ll get there, sooner or later, and that there will be a space for these movies in Aberdeen.
As Mustard Studio’s feasibility study says, “programming the right mix of content is as much science as art”. I know well enough that a cinema that shows too many arthouse, independent and foreign language titles in Aberdeen will fail – I’ve seen it first-hand.
But, there is a third way: a cinema that chooses the correct mainstream fare for the audience; an even keel of the eclectic and the everyday, and events that augment the experience.
Put the needs of the local community at the centre of things
Comic book blockbusters will rarely work at a venue like the Belmont, and they’re best left to the multis. But quality, Oscar-contending mainstream, balanced with select foreign language films, cult classics, and fun, offbeat screenings, will work alongside supplementary income and, crucially, funding. I’ve seen that, too.
While Mustard’s report stated that less of an arthouse offering was required, it also said that “Aberdeen still needs a broader range of cultural content”. I agree: we do.
A programme that isn’t too arthouse, and that isn’t too mainstream, with locally-based programmers who know the city and who can hear the audience
The real win to be had in a renewal of Belmont cinema is to finally take the opportunity to allow for an organisation and operation that really puts the needs of the local community at the centre of things. A programme that isn’t too arthouse, and that isn’t too mainstream, with locally-based programmers who know the city and who can hear the audience.
Then, the building can be truly opened up, so the best can be made of the three screens within.
Programming partners are there to be found in many of the city’s festivals and cultural organisations, or within the universities, colleges and communities who make films themselves. The cinema can be a base for film and exhibition throughout the whole north-east. At the moment, we desperately miss it.
Colin Farquhar works as a creative spaces manager and film programmer in the north-east culture sector
Conversation