Cine-Files

On Tuesday The Guardian's Film website published a review I wrote for their Cine-Files blog, a weekly look at cinemas across the world. My review was for the Amsterdam cinema Kriterion, a beautiful cinema in a city filled with gorgeous cinemas.

Kriterion is at the heart of the film industry in Amsterdam, and everyone I know in that city has worked there at some point or another.

You can read the article here.

72 Hours in Amsterdam

The Dutch have a theory about why they are good at cooperating. "It's the dam concept" said Raymond Walvarens, head of the prestigious Rialto cinema, over a plate of couscous. "If thirteen farmers have to build a dam, they all need to agree on it, cause if one doesn't participate, the dam won't work." On that simple concept, all the major cities of the Netherlands were built, turning a hostile enviroment into a powerful and rich nation.
Amsterdam, (the dam on the Amstel river) is home to 13 individual arthouse cinemas, all distinct and unique in their own quirky way. I visited five of them. They're all part of a network called CINEVILLE, which has an unlimited card that people can subscribe to, and is designed to fight Pathe's dominance of the exhibition sector.
Set up a year ago by four twentysomething film enthusiasts, Cineville is hugely succesful and is helping little independent cinemas thrive in a difficult market.
I spent some time over the last few days looking at this network and some of the cinemas, and was happy to find a diverse bunch of 'theatres' showing everything from SEX AND THE CITY 2 (made me feel a little better about us doing it) to MAO'S LAST DANCER.

London Arthouse Alliance

In Amsterdam, arthouse cinemas got together and agreed on offering an unlimited card scheme to customers, (like the Cineworld Unlimited Card here) called CINEVILLE. While in Venice I met Raymond Walvarens, the director of the RIALTO cinema, and one of the forces behind the idea.

This made me think that a similar idea for London arthouse cinemas would be fantastic. According to Raymond, admissions have grown, the scheme pays for itself, and it's increased loyalty and frequency of visits from the arthouse crowd. The arthouse market spends so much time competing with each other that we can easily forget that we need to be fighting the real competitor, the mulitplex, who increasingly progamme more and more arthouse (particularly cross-over titles that are our bread and butter) and who use their marketing machines to take the little disposable income audiences have.

An unlimited card would incentivize audiences not only to visit our venues more, but also to take risks on films - buying an arthouse unlimited card would not only be an economically sensible thing to do, it's also an investment in quality. Quality of the programme, but also of experience. Our venues are better at customer service, at providing drinks and food, at showing the film in the right format, at the right sound level, in a safe and comfortable environment.

The cons to the deal are huge: what about each individual cinema or group of cinemas? Would they lose their identity? Would they lose members? How do we even get competing exhibitors in the room?

Understanding the common problems and challenges we share and finding solutions can solidify our sector, increase our market share, and consolidate the marketing presence of our type of cinemas. United we could stop the hemorrhaging of customers to their local multiplex. I'd be interested to hear of anyone thinks this is possible, particularly from the exhibition sector.