Well, we’ve had our first snow, the Christmas tree is up and I’ve been to the panto early doors. ‘Tis truly the season now. Hark, the Herald Angels of the Festive season are singing.
For those of us lucky enough to put our feet up for the majority of Christmas, it’s time to look out the baffies, the sweeties and pour an appropriately sized glass of our favourite merry tipple. I can feel myself lurching toward the decompression, one Quality Street wrapper at a time.
It wasn’t always like this for me though. A few years back when Aberdeen’s Belmont Cinema was still open and I still worked there, this would have been the beginning of an intensely busy bit of the year. Nostalgia season, where Muppet Christmas Carol, Die Hard and It’s A Wonderful Life peppered the schedule, alongside the late-year contemporary releases.
It was fun. The Christmas costumes, the cheery customers and the reliably heartwarming films. Always a nice way to taper off the end of any year, after a hectic Autumn schedule.
It’s unfortunate that, for the time being at least, we don’t have that option as filmgoers in Aberdeen to visit an independent cinema during December.
Belmont Cinema closed in 2022, just as we were pulling our Christmas schedule for that year together. Of course, there are options – I went along to Love Actually, with a live orchestral score no less, at P&J Live just the other night. It was charming, but I’m a purist and a large conference centre is not a cinema. The experience was very different to the one we used to get from Belmont.
Here’s hoping by Christmas 2025 we might have the Belmont Cinema back
There’s also something about what is mainly a gig and conference venue that just encourages people to yap during the film. Shush!
Same goes with the multiplexes in the city. Cineworld is showing the Christmassy fare too, including Die Hard, my personal favourite Christmas film – I even wore a Die Hard Xmas jumper along to the screening of Love Actually, representing the true nature of things. Die Hard IS a Christmas film. ‘Welcome to the party, pal’ indeed.
But, it’s just not the same as seeing Die Hard, Gremlins or newer Xmas additions like Carol, at the cinema I know best. The one I miss the most. One which crucially is in the city, rather than a 45 minute bus journey away, like TECA. Here’s hoping that by Christmas 2025, we might have it back.
Muppet Christmas Carol, which also played at P&J Live last week, was another big hit at Belmont, particularly with school groups doing day trips out before the term ended. Kids and teachers alike love that film, and when Beaker gives Michael Caine’s Scrooge his scarf at the end of the film – I well up every time.
Christmas Eve was always the big day for us in December, of course. We’d cram in as many showings of It’s A Wonderful Life as we could, and they were always packed out. Dallas King, who is now leading the charge at Belmont Community Cinema, intro’d the film with a quiz and prizes.
I now find myself asking if Christmas is really Christmas without seeing Dallas throw sweets at high velocity into the audience. You have to make a special effort to hit those customers sitting at the back in Screen 1.
The Cowdray has its place in the cinema offering in Aberdeen
Belmont Community Cinema, having now hired staff and raised significant sums of cash to help them along the road to reopening, have managed to host an Xmas film year on year since the cinemas closure. This year Cowdray Hall plays host to a free It’s A Wonderful Life. A fab setting in the city centre where those who miss the Belmont can get together and lament, maybe over a mulled wine.
Cowdray has its place in the cinema offering of Aberdeen. It has shown film programmes before in its history, and it’s a fantastic venue to sub in while Belmont gets back on its feet. But these events ache for a more permanent home.
It has been a long few years without the Belmont Cinema, for fans of films in the city. The years immediately preceding the closure were no cakewalk either, with cost-of-living and pandemic pressures causing the collapse of the business. As we get closer to 2025 though, there may be winds of change in the offing. The Scottish Government’s increase to arts funding in the recent budget is tentatively the most positive news the culture sector has heard in a while. It shows a dedication to the arts that perhaps has lacked true effectiveness in recent years.
And, maybe in 2025, within a more optimistic landscape, and a fair wind, we’ll see Belmont Community Cinema reopen, and I can watch It’s A Wonderful Life, Die Hard and Muppets in a new upholstered cinema seat. Remember what Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey says as he revels in his own second chance – ‘Merry Christmas, Moviehouse’.
Colin Farquhar works as a creative spaces manager and film programmer in the north-east culture sector
Conversation