Ephemeral Cinema Spaces : Stories of Reinvention, Resistance and Community

Abstract

With changing technologies and social habits, the communal cinema experience would seem to be a legacy from another era. However, the 2010s saw a surge in interest for screening films in other temporary public settings. This desire to turn ruins, pubs, galleries, parks, village halls, and even boats into ephemeral cinema spaces is a search for ways of being and working together, using cinema as a framework for social encounter. This book documents contemporary practices of pop-up and sitespecific cinema exhibition in the UK (with a focus on Scotland), tracing their links with historical forms of non-theatrical exhibition such as public hall cinema and fairground bioscopes. Through archival research, observation and interviews with film exhibitors and programmers, the book explores how exhibitors create ephemeral social spaces, how they negotiate the various uses and configurations of films and venues, and how they reinvent cinemagoing from its margins.