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Edgar Wright was one of the first to issue a rallying cry in support of London’s shuttered cinemas. Now independent distributor and streaming site MUBI has come to the party in a big way by announcing a new fund to help mitigate the impact of the lockdown on our favourite picturehouses.
The UK Cinema Fund aims to raise £100,000 to support cinemas across the UK. MUBI has already donated £10,000 and generous Londoners are adding to the pot. If you’d like to chip in, head to the official GoFundMe page and accept the eternal gratitude of the cinema gods.
Once that target is reached, the money will be handed across to the BFI’s own resilience fund and used to offer financial support to struggling cinemas across the land.
‘Cinemas and their staff are our partners, friends and colleagues,’ says MUBI CEO Efe Cakarel. ‘We want to support them in any way we can during this incredibly difficult time, because we can’t imagine a world without them. We hope this fund gives them some of the support they need to reopen as soon as it’s possible.’
In a gesture of solidarity, there’s a UK Cinema Fund-related message of defiance adorning the front of a few of London’s favourite cinemas – including the Rio in Dalston, East Finchley’s Phoenix, Bethnal Green’s Genesis, and Catford Mews.
Solidarity is in shorter supply in another key area of the cinema scene, meanwhile. Odeon has announced that it will refuse to show Universal movies – including, presumably, ‘No Time to Die’ – post-lockdown. The row has been sparked by Universal’s decision to send ‘Trolls World Tour’ straight to streaming rather than waiting until cinemas reopen.
If it follows suit with releases from Warner Bros, which has Scooby-Doo movie ‘Scoob!’ streaming from May 15, it could stay quiet at Odeon cinemas for a while yet.
Donate to the UK Cinema Fund at the official GoFundMe page until May 25.
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