A beloved Icon reopens – and the effort it took to get there

As if the pandemic wasn’t bad enough for cinemas, in October 2022, workers turned up at Edinburgh Filmhouse to find the doors closed, bolted. Overnight, the parent body had gone into administration. One of the UK’s most famous independent cinemas, home to the Edinburgh International Film Festival, was shuttered. 

Community leaders seldom wear capes, but in the wake of Filmhouse’s closure, they did something heroic: they successfully developed a new business model, launched a fundraising campaign, secured a long lease on the building, raised the required funds, did a major renovation of the premises, and built a new organisation to champion the broadest range of cultural cinema in Edinburgh. In June 2025, less than three years after its calamity, Filmhouse reopened to sell-out houses – just in time for the 78th edition of the Edinburgh International Film Festival. 

At Mustard, we love a good cinema opening story. Still, this one is even closer to our hearts as one of the directors of Filmhouse is James Rice, our associate with whom we work closely on cinema development and strategy.

Now that the cinema has been open for a few weeks, we've had the opportunity to discuss with him how to reopen a cinema. 

Can you paint a picture of when inspiration struck and you knew you were going to go for it?

It was quite soon after the place shut; the cinema had been operating for about 40 years and had a not-for-profit mission with the aim of broadening film culture in Edinburgh and fulfilling educational goals. When it closed, there was an immediate, loud public outcry, because a whole community around Filmhouse had been using it or benefiting from it, both recently and over many years. There were grassroots meetings, the Save the Filmhouse group sprang up, and basically lots of energy in the community around Filmhouse. A few of us ended up being at the centre of what was a wider effort, but that community-level energy was vital from start to finish.

It took about a month for us to get going, though, as we were still in shock. It was a very sudden demise for the old place. And, I was keen to help, but I had no idea what to do. But what happened was that we ended up in the pub, predictably. Jenny Leask, a friend who had worked at Filmhouse in years past, was visiting Edinburgh from Shetland. As always, she got everyone out to the pub when she was here. So it was me, Rod White, programmer of Filmhouse and Ginnie Atkinson, who was CEO of EIFF for a long time. We were trying to figure out who would lead the effort to save the cinema, not really thinking it would be us. Everyone agreed something had to be done – it was just unthinkable that Edinburgh would not have a cinema that does that kind of work. There are lots of other great cinemas in Edinburgh, of course, but there is no other site operating so far beyond what’s commercially viable to do and providing an educational facility like that. So the idea germinated that evening in the pub with Jenny, around November. We decided to do something, and David Boyd agreed to join as well, and the next week we met up to get started. 

The building had been put on the market by the administrators, so the first thing we decided to try and do – I mean, it was a pretty wild thing to attempt, looking back on it – was to buy the building by raising £1.5 million through a crowdfunding campaign in two weeks. The sales deadline was very sharp. We didn’t make it, but the effort turned out to be hugely important because it helped give people a focus. 

Filmhouse Campaign

Stage Left, enter community?

Yes, that first crowdfunder helped us in the longer term to demonstrate this kind of depth of community support. Because one thing is certain, regardless of any effort that I might have made, or my immediate colleagues, Filmhouse has only survived because it has this community around it, like there are enough people who know what it is, who value what it does, and who were determined to help. 

People have helped in various ways, including through our first Crowdfunder and the second, which was a more long-term effort that has raised significant funds for the capital campaign. You know, people who've been willing to put their hand in their pocket and help out that way, but also people who've volunteered time, people at the stakeholder level, who've been motivated by the grassroots outcry and by the community, by the letter writing and by the support they see through the fundraising.

City of Edinburgh Council have been great, Screen Scotland has been absolutely, unbelievably supportive – but they’ve done it because they could see the community support was there. If there had been no noise going on, no stamping of feet and saying ‘we need this place back’, then there would have been less of a case to make. 

So, you were able to show credibility for the project?

We needed to demonstrate credibility. Filmhouse is not-for-profit – that’s the only way you can do the things it does – but it doesn’t just live on handouts. Public subsidy helps it push boundaries, but it's a relatively small proportion of turnover; the cinema has to operate as a business. We had to show our business modelling, understanding the market, etc. – but a key part of the viability case was showing community support. You can put all kinds of numbers together and show that it works in theory. Still, if there isn't real evidence of serious want for it among the people who will use it, then, you know, it's less compelling. But in our case, thankfully, there was that interest. 

And that's come through in the last couple of weeks, just since we opened with lots of sellouts, which has been wonderful. All that stuff people did – volunteering, writing letters, donating – all looks as though it has translated into actual customer engagement. 

The business case underlying it matters a whole lot, though. This was where my experience working with Mustard, on business modelling and viability assessment for a bunch of other cinemas, proved enormously valuable. There’s no way I could have done what I’ve done for Filmhouse in the last few years if I hadn’t left my role there in 2019 and gone to work with INDY and then with Mustard. It’s not just the technical skills, but also just getting into different perspectives on how – and why – you’d run an independent cinema and what it can look like as a business operation. I think also a lot of what I’ve learned from Kate and Mandy and other Mustard colleagues about the hospitality side of things, and how you can think about cinema food and bev in a more joined up way, really helped me contribute to expressing what we wanted the new Filmhouse to become as a venue, or a place – I mean, looking beyond the programming range per se, which is central.

It actually feels relatively quick from closing to reopening the cinema. Does it feel like it?

It feels like it's taken an absolute eternity!

To begin with, we had unrealistic hopes or expectations about how soon things might develop. The thing is, after the first Crowdfunder fell short, there was a period of genuine, deep uncertainty about whether anything would ever come off, or what else we might be able to do, because they were concluding the sale of the building. We didn't know who was going to buy it, or had bought it, so there was this whole period of months where the outlook was highly uncertain.

And frankly, at that point, it was doubtful that anything would happen. So many things have had to go right for Filmhouse to re-open; some of them were within our control, but many of them were not. And thankfully, many of them went right. We found out who owned the building, and they were willing to speak with us. It took a long time to negotiate the lease, which is not a trivial thing to conclude; it's a 25-year commercial lease with an option to renew. We signed the lease last summer, but we’d already been working closely with the architect and designers to get everything lined up and ready to press go as soon as possible so that we could open the building with minimum delay. 

For a while we hoped to reopen in October 2024, marking the two-year anniversary of the venue's closure, but that turned out to be totally unrealistic. And then we thought maybe we can be open by Christmas. Nope…

This sounds like an episode of Grand Designs…

With hindsight, there was quite a lot we didn’t know that we didn’t know. We’ve all got heaps of high level professional experience in different aspects of running cinemas, film exhibition and so forth. None of the four of us had previous experience with a project quite like this, though, let alone a capital project at this scale. We were really in the wilderness and had to find our way home. So it was good to get that experience. It's fair to say that we all learned a lot. We opened in June, but part of the project was to create a small fourth screen. And then there is the work in the non-public areas, such as the offices, which we will let out to like-minded companies who are involved in film or working with cinema in some way. We like this idea because it will create a cluster of people doing film-related work. 

It didn’t take longer than we wanted through anyone’s fault, though. The architect and the QS have been great. The contractors have been really good. It's just so complicated because the contractors have all these different subcontractors, and then the sequences where this thing can only happen once that thing’s done, layer upon layer of it, and on it goes. It was hard to make it as fast as we wanted. But that’s fine. We're glad to be open now. We're in time to be a venue for this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival, which is marvellous. Even the new Screen 4 will be ready by then. It's a significant milestone.

It’s a testament to the Famous Five (James, Rod, Ginnie, David and Mike) that you got this done. It's not a small undertaking

We were very fortunate in Edinburgh, because there happened to be a group of people with different, but complementary, skills. So in most areas at least one person could contribute. And then also, we were lucky, because we've all known each other for years, and although the process has not been stress-free, sometimes you can cope better with it if you’re working with people who really know you. 

Part of the team (L to R) James Rice, Ginnie Atkinson, Steven Bradley Croall, Rod White, Andrew Simpson

Edinburgh prides itself on being a cultural capital and rightly so, but there wasn’t another cinema quite like Filmhouse, and we were motivated by that; so I guess we had to see it through to the bitter end, whatever that ended up meaning. 

There are other people out there dreaming about renovating a cinema or doing it right now, any advice?

I’d preface this by saying every situation is different, and Filmhouse is quite an unusual sort of project given its very particular cultural mission. Still, at a fundamental level, opening a cinema anywhere is hard work.  People should have crystal clarity about why they are bringing the cinema back and why they are personally doing it, as it's likely to turn out an awful lot harder or more work than you realise it's going to be. 

We had no money and no track record, apart from as individuals (we set up a brand new entity to be the new Filmhouse). We faced long periods of deep uncertainty, which was hard to deal with. However, in our case, we genuinely and strongly believed in what we were doing. We had that crystal clarity on our purpose and our values, and that gave us motivation. We could very reasonably have given up, and with no shame. But that central belief allowed us to persevere. 

Also, although I was fortunate to be in a position where I could organise my workload, I’ve pretty much missed holidays and weekends for a few years, doing unpaid work on top of my day jobs. If you get involved in anything like this, be sure you know why you’re doing it. 

Ok, so next question, and this is not just an excuse for a picture of Jack Lowden (inserts picture of Jack Lowden), but what do high-profile patrons add to the cause?

Jack Lowden + Charlotte Wells

We knew Jack came to Filmhouse before, and he went and did a stonking great speech on saving Filmhouse at the 2022 Scottish BAFTAs. That was brilliant, and helped kickstart awareness. So when we came to the second round of crowdfunding, we wanted to try and get these video statements from well-known faces who could say why they thought it was important that Filmhouse should be revived. 

Jack was the first one to do it and gave a typically hilarious, engaging video about open the doors, which was our campaign slogan. The phrase originally came out of a community focus group – big thanks to all our focus group participants and other volunteers! Jack’s video opened the gates for more people to create videos and post content, leading back to a critical point: demonstrating credibility. There was a need for all kinds of advocacy at a political level. It’s all very well that we’d demonstrated our business model and purpose and vision, etc. But if, on top of that, all these high-profile people like Paul Laverty and Emma Thompson are coming on board, then it completes the picture. 

We were a recipient of a major capital grant from the UK Government’s Community Ownership Fund, part of Levelling Up, which gave us £1.5 million in capital development funding. That was a total a game-changer, but to secure it we had to prove community support. We could show all the comments from our crowdfunders, all the protests, speeches and meetings that happened spontaneously at a grassroots level, and all the film festivals that were impacted by the loss of Filmhouse. Then you add serious people like Jack lowden, and Ewan Bremner and our other patron Charlotte Wells, who came through a youth filmmaking scheme at Filmhouse (SKAMM) – and they’re  speaking so warmly of their experience, and so are great young Scottish filmmakers like Ruth Paxton and Matt Pinder, who used to work at Filmhouse. All this adds profile and resonance, and strengthens the case.

And for people who don’t know Filmhouse, now that you’re open, what should they expect?

Well, the main point is that audiences can expect a much more varied, diverse and eclectic programme of films than anywhere else in Edinburgh. We don’t usually use the term Cinémathque, but we want to be able to show films from all over of the world, from the whole history of cinema, as well as the most exciting new releases. The programme is bursting with themed seasons and film festivals and retrospectives and live events. 

We’ve retained analogue projection facilities – so we’ve got a 16mm projector, twin 35mm, twin 70mm projectors. This means we can show films that might only be available on these legacy formats, or which might be shown to their very best effect that way. 

Sacred Bonds presented by Edinburgh International Film Festival 2025 at Filmhouse

We have lots of filmmaker visits and appearances, and seasons introduced by experts, and we work with numerous film festivals and other outside partners who bring their special interest audiences with them. And we have a whole other line of activity in Learning & Engagement – maybe less visible to someone visiting casually, but it’s at the core of what Filmhouse does, working with schools and others to help people, young and old, learn about films and filmmaking.

One thing that’s become increasingly clear to me is the importance of a space that serves as a gathering place. We’ve got a great bar and café where you can enjoy lunch or dinner, grab a drink or coffee, or meet friends before or after the film – even if you’re not watching one. So, beyond the programme, Filmhouse is really about providing a place for film and a great environment to socialise around and about films, and to learn. 

And in our Bar, we’ve got local beers, local food and drink, vegan and gluten-free, so we’re trying to cater for everyone without making it super pricey. 

Whatever you’re doing at Filmhouse, you can be sure you’ll get a warm welcome. 

Filmhouse is on Lothian Road in Edinburgh. https://www.filmhouse.org.uk/