Plymouth Arts Cinema (PAC) has been awarded £120,000 from the BFI National Lottery Audience Projects Fund, to span three years from August 2023 to March 2026.
PAC staff and trustees are delighted to receive the support of the BFI, awarding National Lottery funding.
As the only independent cinema covering a wide area of South West of England between Totnes and Falmouth, Plymouth Arts Cinema is based at Arts University Plymouth and embedded within the local community.
To continue to provide a vital part of the Plymouth cultural offer, Plymouth Arts Cinema has pledged to nurture the next generation of film lovers. The funding will be used to bring the magic of cinema to three defined groups: those whose socio-economic position makes accessing cultural cinema difficult; families and young people who feel excluded from cultural cinema, and more diverse audiences who more accurately reflect the changing demographics of the city. It will work with charity partners and cultural organisations across Plymouth.
Plymouth Arts Cinema is committed to making cinema affordable to all. A recent pilot of a “no questions asked” £4 budget ticket price was very well received and successful in welcoming new audiences, and the BFI funding will allow this to continue.
Paul Brookes, Chair of the PAC board, said “Plymouth continues to be a place where the arts and heritage flourish. At the height of the pandemic, it was a difficult time for us and other organisations, but audiences are now returning, though still not quite in the numbers we achieved before then. It remains a crucial time for the cinema, given the cost-of-living crisis. This funding for three years gives Plymouth Arts Cinema the ability to attract new audiences for great cinema from around the world, to have a sustainable future, and to continue to subsidise the ticket prices, keeping them affordable when so many things have become more expensive.”
Anna Navas, Director and Film Programmer at PAC, said “The whole PAC team are very grateful to BFI for the Audience Projects Fund award. It is a huge testament to the hard work we put into creating a film programme that can be daring, boundary-pushing and entertaining. We work hard to make sure there is something for everyone in our cinema and at our Open Air Cinema events; from Greta Gerwig’s Barbie to Mark Jenkin’s Enys Men, and we can now look forward to welcoming many more new people to the cinema in the coming years.”
Plymouth Arts Cinema is also supported in 2023 by the Garfield Weston Foundation, the Foyle Foundation and Plymouth City Council.
Plymouth Arts Cinema is now preparing for its annual summer Open Air Cinema events at Tinside Lido, from August 11th – 20th, and will be screening Jaws, Grease, Enys Men, Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Blues Brothers and Roman Holiday. Tickets are available here.
Extra activity surrounding the screenings will come from the Shark Trust, Barbican Theatre, Shekinah Vintage, and Arts University Plymouth. The events are sponsored by Arts University Plymouth, Summerskills Brewery, Plymouth Gin, Sandford Orchards, Chris Kallis Solicitors, 24/7 Event Crew, Plymouth Marjon University, Plymouth Citybus, Navas Drinks, Services Design Solution.
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