Acton Arts Project and ActOne Cinema –

The Story So Far

 

Acton Arts Project is a Community Interest Company made up of local residents. Our shared objective was to stop the Old Library building on Acton High Street, which has Asset of Community Value status, being sold to developers. Our aim was always to restore its appearance and to return it to community use.  We have been working together with this goal for over four years. 

 

We decided in the early days that a cinema would be the ideal way to re-purpose the ground floor of the building.  Supported by research and visits into other independent cinemas and advice from the Independent Cinema Office we partnered with Oliver Meek (The Rio Cinema, Dalston) as our cinema operator.

 

In addition to the Spacehive/crowdfunding campaigns, we secured a Film Exhibition Fund award from Film Hub London to support our opening programming, as well as a grant from the Mayor of London’s ‘Make London’ fund. We also worked with the Architectural Heritage Fund with advice and funding applications for the restoration of the beautiful, Grade II-listed Old Library.

 

We now operate a single screen cinema showing the latest films, complete with a gallery space (open for private hire) and a café/lounge run by family-owned local business Bears Ice Cream.

 

Dr Mark Kermode, chief film critic for The Observer and co-presenter of BBC Radio 5 Live’s Kermode and Mayo's Film Review, said: "A neighbourhood cinema is at the heart of the community - not just a place to see films but, like a pub or a village green, somewhere that local people can meet up and socialise. I’m thrilled that the ActOne Cinema is up and running and has such an exciting future ahead!”

 

Our significant achievements to date: 

• We were successful in our bid for the lease of the building in October 2019.

• Our crowdfunding campaign of November/December 2019 raised over 115K.

• The planning application was successfully approved in September 2020 and was supported positively by 470 Acton residents.

• Our second crowdfunding campaign – for the Pop-Up phase of the project – raised over 60k and was supported by the Mayor of London.

• The lease was signed on 21st April 2021.

• Work on re-purposing the ground floor of the building was carried out from May to August and the fit out and technical aspects of the cinema took place in September.

• The official opening of the newly-named ActOne Cinema was on 8th October 2021 when we screened No Time To Die to sell-out audiences.

• Since opening we have been operational every day except Christmas Day.