Arts funding

Edinburgh Filmhouse has launched a campaign to secure its future, after it agreed a short-term lease with the building's owner to allow fundraising to take place.

The cinema closed its doors in October last year following the collapse of its parent company,  the Centre for the Moving Image (CMI), which ceased trading amid rising overheads and reduced business.

The fundraiser is being spearheaded by the newly formed charity Filmhouse (Edinburgh) Ltd, which has entered into a 6-month interim lease with the building’s owner, Caledonian Heritable. During that time, it hopes to raise an initial  £1.25m for essential refurbishment to reopen in 2024.

If successful, the charity will take on a 21-year lease to operate the cinema independently, with a café bar to help support it financially.

Caledonian Heritable, which owns other hospitality businesses in Edinburgh, has already started upgrading the fabric of the cinema. The company has pledged to gift all projection equipment to the new Filmhouse, including the customised analogue 35mm and 70mm projectors.

After the announcement of the agreement between Filmhouse (Edinburgh) and the privately-owned Caledonian Heritable, national funding body Screen Scotland confirmed it had awarded the charity £60,000 to support its planning and development work.

Screen Scotland has been working with the City of Edinburgh Council and the Scottish government to ensure a future for independent cinema in the city since CMI’s collapse, which also resulted in the demise of the Edinburgh International Film Festival and Belmont Filmhouse in Aberdeen.

Culture Minister Christina McKelvie said: “The Scottish government is absolutely clear on the value of cultural cinema and the importance of ensuring its future.

“I am delighted to see that work to secure its future is progressing, and I am grateful to all involved for their ongoing hard work and dedication.”
 

A fundraising event staged by fashion magazine Vogue has raised £2m for London-based arts organisations that saw their support cut by Arts Council England (ACE). 

Promoted as an event to "celebrate a mix of opera, dance, theatre and fashion", Vogue said it will donate 100% of net proceeds from ticket sales to 21 arts and cultural organisations in London in the form of grants. 

Those set to receive the grants include the National Theatre, the Royal Opera House, the Royal Ballet, Southbank Sinfonia and the Rambert Dance Company. The funds can be used for anything related to their core mission and objectives.

The recipients comprise three types of organisations, including larger institutions classed as  ‘Vogue World cultural partners’, which helped to produce the event. Donations will also go to organisations that support freelancers and small companies in London that have recently received funding for the first time or had their funding reduced.

In a press release, Vogue said: “In addition to ticket proceeds, Vogue is working with a number of organisations and donors to increase donations to the fund through individual contributions.”

Vogue Editor Anna Wintour previously said the decision to give proceeds from the event mainly to London-based organisations was a response to arts funding being shifted outside the capital for the 2023-26 National Portfolio after ACE was required to reduce funding for London-based organisations by 15%.

“The arts are under threat in the UK, and Vogue World will be a timely reminder of how important they are, how vital a part of our lives, and how much they need our support,” Wintour said.

“The London art scene is so important economically to the city. So many people come to London as tourists to appreciate the art scenes.”

The 37-minute show, held at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on Thursday night, was directed by Stephen Daldry and included a host of well-known actors and musicians who paid tribute to the importance of the arts.

Mercury Prize winners Ezra Collective have said music funding needs to diversify away from London to make more opportunities elsewhere in the UK.

The London-based Jazz quintet, who won the prestigious music prize last week, were the ninth consecutive winners to come from the capital.

In total, three-quarters of the year’s twelve nominations were from London.

Bandleader Femi Koleoso told the BBC focus on music from the capital is due to funding.

“If we were to diversify that, the list would diversify,” he said.

“I celebrate places like East London Arts and Music, The Brit School and all the brilliant things in London that allow people like us to exist.”

“But at the same time I'd love to see it replicated elsewhere in the UK and then you might have 10, 12 nominees from different regions.”

During the band’s acceptance speech last week, Koleoso paid tribute to “special people putting time and effort into [helping] young people to play music”.

“This is a special moment for every single organisation across the country ploughing their efforts and time into young people playing music,” he added.

“Let me tell you something really serious – we've got something special in the UK. We've got something special by way of young musicians, so let's continue to support that.”

Art Fund has awarded £1m in grants for museums and galleries to improve inclusion in the workforce.

The funding comprises £800,000, split between 21 museums and galleries, in the latest round of its Reimagine Grants programme.

The charity says it was particularly interested in applications that responded to the findings and recommendations of its 2022 report on diversity in the curatorial workplace and that are aiming to make their organisations more inclusive.

Contemporary Visual Arts Network has been awarded the maximum £50,000 for a project in partnership with the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art that will offer a two-year professional development programme supporting artists and arts professionals from marginalised communities.

Other funded projects include volunteering opportunities and employment pathways for disabled and neurodivergent people at Buckinghamshire’s National Paralympic Heritage Centre and an action learning project developing new ways of working with underrepresented communities at Oriel Myrddin Gallery in Carmarthenshire.

A total of £7.3m has been awarded in Reimagine Grants since the first round in August 2020.

Art Fund’s £1m grant package also includes a ringfenced £200,000 to be awarded through Museum Development UK (MDUK) to support smaller museums retain and train staff.

MDUK will distribute the funds through a combination of grants and programmes, while investing £100,000 of their own through match funding.

The award giving will have an emphasis on curatorial posts and members of the workforce who work directly with collections including learning, engagement and conservation.