Special feature - Rural cinema in the north

Rural cinema in the north

May 2007

HI~Arts, the arts development agency for the Highlands and Islands, has provided a mobile cinema service to communities across the region through its Screen Machine mobile cinemas for nearly ten years.  Matt Lloyd explains how the Rural Cinema North project is now taking cinema provision in the north to the next level.

Through Screen Machines 1 and 2, HI~Arts has been bringing the big screen experience to dispersed communities for the best part of a decade. Audiences from as far afield as Durness, Castlebay and Brodick have all had the opportunity to see the likes of Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean and Casino Royale almost as soon as they are screened in major cities, rather than waiting for the DVD release.
 

 
Arguably of greater importance, Screen Machine offers the opportunity to engage in a communal experience, to enter a darkened hall with a group of friends and strangers, and for two hours let nothing distract from the story that is being told.

Inevitably, Screen Machine cannot please everyone all the time. Prints of popular movies are difficult to obtain, as the multiplexes will hold onto them for longer. Prints are cumbersome and expensive to transport too, so taking a risk on a non-mainstream title is rarely an option. Quality Hollywood titles are the priority. Consequently, HI~Arts made the decision to explore ways of catering to a small but growing audience for so-called specialised film – foreign, independent or arthouse releases.
 

 
Rural Cinema North was created to this end. Funded by the Scottish Screen Rural Cinema Development Scheme, HI~Arts formed a consortium with Eden Court Theatre and North East Arts Touring (NEAT) to establish an initial pilot project of two years. The aims would be to promote cinema as an art form, and to make accessible to rural communities a wider range of films than was currently available through existing provision. I was appointed in August 2005 to coordinate the project, and to develop opportunities for events and screenings throughout the north of Scotland.

Film societies have been a mainstay of rural communities for decades. Up until the early 80s, the Highlands & Islands Film Guild toured the region with feature films, newsreels and portable 16mm projectors. The rise of the domestic video recorder finally put paid to this service, as watching films in the comfort of the home seemed a more attractive prospect than rickety, noisy and unreliable 16mm projectors in draughty church halls (oddly enough). And with new technological advances over the years – DVD, surround sound, widescreen TV, internet-based video libraries – the days of the communal film club seemed all but over.

However, the same technology that has made home cinema so popular is rejuvenating the shared cinema experience too. DVD projection is affordable and easy to use, and the quality of image is extraordinary. Home cinema has its benefits, but well programmed film societies can introduce audiences to films they might never otherwise see, and on the big screen, as the filmmaker intended.

Working with the Scottish branch of the British Federation of Film Societies, I was able to identify where the gaps in provision were, to offer advice and information to arts groups and communities wishing to stage screenings, and to provide a forum for groups to share experiences through an online resource: www.virtualfilmclub.org.uk. Borrowing BFFS equipment, I ran a DVD taster road show, visiting communities from Mull to South Ronaldsay. This gave local film buffs the opportunity to investigate the public interest in screenings in their area, and to see and hear exactly what was involved. Those groups who wished to take it further were able to book films through a HI~Arts account and borrow BFFS equipment until they were in a position to raise funds and set up their own accounts with film distributors.
 

 
Working with Screen Machine I was able to pilot several one-off events in specific areas, both independently and in collaboration with local arts groups. To give just a few examples: Ullapool and Lochinver benefited from programmes of work by Scottish moving image artists, including Orcadian Colin Kirkpatrick’s acclaimed film The Cowboy and the Spaceman. Colin was on hand to introduce the film and take questions from the audience. More recently Screen Machine has been included on the nationwide Cinema China festival tour; a Highland audience was treated to a preview showing of the critically acclaimed Zhang Yimou film Riding Alone For Thousands of Miles, even before it screened in London!

In collaboration with the Cowalfest walking festival, Rural Cinema North and Screen Machine brought a programme of classic films to locations in Argyll, many of them on rare and hard to find prints. This project was a particular favourite of mine, not least for the opportunity to view Michael Powell’s classic I Know Where I’m Going whilst digesting a plate of Loch Fyne oysters! I was also invited to co-direct the fourth Inverness Film Festival. Eden Court cinema programmer Paul Taylor and I devised a new identity and theme for the festival, concentrating on local talent and the cinema of peripheral communities worldwide. We were rewarded with fantastic press coverage and attendance figures almost three times those of the previous year.
 

 
Throughout the two years of the pilot I have been able to support a range of organisations both within the Highlands and internationally. I have advised local arts festivals on their film content, served on steering groups for one-off events, and helped judge the Highland-wide Digital Eden filmmaking competition. Rural Cinema North provided funds for BFFS to stage a screening on the Isle of Eigg, at which almost the entire population was in attendance! The Virtual Film Club website has attracted enquiries from UK-wide and European groups, several of whom have praised it as one of the most accessible and helpful resources of its type on the web.

The pilot project is now entering its final stage, that of planning a sustainable and wide reaching future. These are interesting times for cultural cinema in Scotland. Scottish Screen has recently published its strategy for film exhibition, to include a rural cinema ‘hub’, or centre of excellence for dispersed communities across the whole of Scotland. The lessons learnt in the Rural Cinema North pilot will directly inform the activities of this hub. Naturally the challenges of the Highlands and Islands are unique, but the value of cinema as a communal, cultural experience is universal. We look forward to bringing more friends and strangers together in darkened halls!