CINESCAPES

Bringing communities together with cinema during this Covid-19 crisis through a series of hyperlocal film events. Watch films on walls across Scotland or from the comfort of your own home while supporting your local businesses. 

CINESCAPES aims to bring some of the best Scottish films to you while also working and collaborating with as many local artists, curators, organisations, filmmakers, and vendors to make this project a reality! 

SUMMARY

Cinetopia in collaboration with Double Take Projections, Edinburgh Cinema Club, Cinemaattic, WoFF World of Film International film festival are producing Cinescapes, a series of hyperlocal film events across Scotland. The landscape of cinema has changed, but the urge to come together as a community and enjoy cinema remains integral to our collective connection. This project will celebrate films inspired by various locations across the country while shining the spotlight on much-loved local establishments. In a hybrid festival format, we are making the project as accessible as possible, sharing the films both online and in various locations outdoors, allowing people to watch the film in various ways simultaneously, from your home entertainment system to balconies, courtyards, and socially distanced plots of grass nearby. While many of our beloved arts venues continue to remain closed, we are taking the movies to a wall near you.

CINESCAPES is backed by both extra funding by Creative Scotland and also NatWest (as part of the Back Her Business initiative). That means the money you give us will receive MATCH FUNDING up to £5,000, so please help us spread the word if you can!

INSPIRATION

Watching films on walls from our homes and courtyards has become a way for neighbors and local communities across the world to connect during this current COVID-19 crisis. From Italy to Ireland to Germany, we have seen heartwarming images of people coming together watching films from their own homes and balconies. With this project, we want to explore how we can achieve a similar connection in our communities in Scotland, from rural towns in Fife to densely populated parts of our larger cities in the central belt.

Image: Windowflicks project in Berlin from "The Guardian"

This project aims to celebrate cinema-going this autumn when many people might still feel uncomfortable to attend arts events indoors. The proposed project aims to project films in various locations across the country, showcasing location-inspired films on walls across Scotland for local audiences to view from their windows, courtyards, or socially distanced plots of grass nearby. Since we all won't be able to make it to each of these hyperlocal film events, we also hope to offer the films online, so everyone can collectively watch the film programmes together.

Local food vendors would supply and deliver food to audience members locally, and we would also attempt galvanise support in various capacities for local businesses and arts venues who must remain shut during this time. We will do this by organising and filming a small series of short videos, shot and filmed by Cinetopia co-founder and filmmaker, Amanda Rogers. The events will showcase small local businesses at a time when they need our help the most. 

THE PLAN

Launching in autumn 2020, contingent on raising the money, we aim to run 5 hyperlocal film programmes across various locations in Scotland. Each film will be showcased in a location inspired by the films we acquire the rights to show, projected for free to local community members to be able to be watched from their windows, balconies, and socially-distanced plots of grass. We will also be showing the films through our online virtual eventive platform for that timeframe as well. Our aim is collaborate with both local arts organisations as well as local food vendors so we can offer food delivery to the doorsteps of our filmgoing audience. This project's aim is to celebrate our local businesses as well as shine a light on some specialised films from around Scotland you might not have had the chance to see. 

We will be sorting out locations and films in the next few weeks and will continue to update this crowdfunder campaign with film titles, dates, locations, etc. as they become more firm. 

Any additional money raised either through this crowdfunder or any other funding will be put into offering more screenings, either in different locations around the same city or neighborhood or more films and locations around Scotland. This project has the capacity of to scale up depending on how much support we can obtain to make this project a reality!

CONTRIBUTORS

Cinetopia is a hub of activity around filmmaking and film-going in Edinburgh and beyond. Before March 2020, Cinetopia regularly ran community film screenings at Leith Theatre, documentary cineclub meetups in the Edinburgh Film Guild theatre as well as networking events for local filmmakers and film industry professionals. Cinetopia also ran its first outdoor film event at Custom Lane in 2019, Cinema on the Shore, serving up pizza and cocktails while showing the classic Italian film, Cinema Paradiso. We also recently set up an online portal to show films as well, now showcasing a series of documentaries around the idea of community. With community cinema and the film community at the heart of what we do, we plan to continue the work that we started in engaging local audiences in a time when our beloved home venues are closed for the time being by bringing the films to you. 

Double Take Projections is an innovative Scottish design consultancy specialising in creating immersive visual experiences using a technique called Projection Mapping.  They are a bespoke Agency, creating unique, one-off building projection spectacles.Projection Mapping is a new and exciting technique which harnesses the recent advances in high powered projection equipment to allow us to animate any surface. They are able to radically alter the character of an environment or object by projecting from different angles onto a variety of surfaces. Video mapping creates an illusion, with moving images, which will captivate live audiences, leaving them with an unforgettable impression of your brand or event. Their products will impact on audiences creating abiding memories. 

Edinburgh Cinema Club is a community based club connecting like minded film lovers with one another, local businesses & the big screen. Prior to the COVID-19 induced lockdown, Edinburgh Cinema Club ran various dynamic events throughout Edinburgh where small groups would watch a movie together & then chat about it over wine & small plates, or coffee & cake. Since lockdown, events have continued in a virtual manner with online discussion groups, regular film recommendations & an after school children’s club all taking place. Sounds fun? It is! Edinburgh Cinema Club believes a strong connected community is fundamental to having a good life & being passionate diversity champions the events run are accessible, educative & founded upon inclusive conversations that build new relationships. Going forward, Edinburgh Cinema Club can’t wait to get you all back connecting again over films in the safest way possible.’

WoFF: World of Film International Festival is Glasgow’s annual independent film event, held in October, and currently in its seventh edition. Our main focus is to promote independent international cinema and new talent from Scotland, the UK and beyond. Our aim is to bring local and Scottish audiences together with filmmakers, producers, artists and cinema enthusiasts from all around the world, in an attempt to discover new talent, showcase their work and generate ideas for future projects. WoFF is a non-profit organisation bringing audiences a step closer to international independent cinema and giving voice to young artists.

Cinemaattic is the platform for Spanish, Iberian and Latin-American cinema in Scotland. Its main purpose is to raise the profile of Ibero-American cinema in Scotland and UK. By collaborating with key venues and institutions, we connect emerging filmmakers from Spain, Portugal and Latin America with British organisations and audiences.CinemaAttic was established in 2008 as an arts and culture blog to provide a platform for thoughts and ideas about independent cinema. The name derives from its first venue, a secret loft located in the heart of Edinburgh that was converted into a cinema to host underground cultural events.

ARTISAN LARDER/OSTARA cafe is a neighbourhood cafe bistro near the popular Shore area in Leith, a 10-minute stroll from the Royal Yacht Britannia. Ostara believes the best food is simple, made with great ingredients and enjoyed with friends. Winner of The List food and Drink Guide Best Newcomer 2017/18 and voted one of the country’s best cafes two years running in The Skinny magazine, Ostara also created Artisan Larder, which was born out of demand to have the great local products they use in their available to take home for personal use. They currently deliver hampers and picnic platters through their website artisanlarderscotland.co.uk, and their cafe has recently opened offering a take away deli service as well as a cafe.  

We have exciting perks including this one which is a box of wine, cheese, and artisanal scottish foods + a movie link to accompany watching one of the films that we plan to showcase. This box comes in a small and large size and available across the UK.