The oldest continuous cinema in the UK is breathing new life into the Hackney community through its diverse film programme.
Rio Cinema in Dalston, established as a charity in 1976 within a building partially dating to 1909, features an eclectic assortment of film clubs organised by individual staff members and events, such as the Arabic Cinema Club, brought by external creatives.
Its art deco design has attracted the interest of the Open House Festival, a celebration of architectural landmarks and the neighbourhoods that support them – with a guided tour scheduled tomorrow.
The Rio’s executive director Rosie Greatorex said: “Our programming ethos makes us unique and I think our history makes us unique, because there isn’t another cinema in the UK that has this radical history.
“The founders had an idea that at least once a week there should be something screened for everyone in the borough.”
The cinema organised the Tape/Slide project in the 1980s, which trained young people to make news reels about Hackney, and is today home to Pink Palace Queer Film Club, the only weekly club of its kind in the UK.
Rio is filled with artefacts from its past, cabinets stocked with decades of film programmes and old reels.
Layla Khatib, a teacher from east London, said: “There is soul to it. People have a personal connection to it, its not just a chain cinema.”
Speaking in a crowd gathered outside to talk about the films shown at Arabic Cinema Club, Layla said: “I’m Palestinian myself and these are films I’ve never seen.
“That I can be in a place so far from home, and be introduced to something that’s so close to the heart and so close to our culture, that I wouldn’t have without Rio, it means a lot to me.
“You walk into spaces and know that I feel safe here, I can bring my people here.”
Staff and external collaborators are given creative licence over programming.
Ching Wong, festival director of the Hong Kong Film Festival UK, said: “They are very open-minded. We are free to programme what we want in there.”
An audience consisting of many uninitiated with the joys of Hong Kong and South East Asian cinema stayed behind for two hours after the screening.
“Rio are very embedded in their inner community. It helped us to bring the cinema to the people, rather than the people coming to the cinema,” Ching added.
Rosa Marouane, duty manager at the Rio, said staff having a measure of artistic control in cinemas was rare.
Rosa, who runs the genre-blurring Dream Emulator club, where cinematic video game footage is projected onto the big screen, said: “I’ve worked in cinemas for eight or nine years and even in independent cinemas it’s not common for staff to get much if any programming control.”
This free-spirited approach has led to Category H, specialising in late night horror double-bills, and Never Watching Movies, screenings of diaspora films organised by social media manger Zain Gibson.
Zain said: “I think watching any film with other people makes it a completely different experience.
“The most rewarding part is whether it’s a busy event or a small event, it’s something that impacts someone.”
More information about the Hong Kong Film Festival UK and its next screening at Rio on 27 September can be found at https://www.hkff.uk/
Feature image credit: Jack Prentice
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