A leading film director has called on the Government to help save Cambridge’s closure-threatened Arts Picturehouse cinema.
Baroness Kidron, who directed the second Bridget Jones movie, said it was crucial to keep cinemas outside London open to rebalance the growing divide in arts spending between the capital and the rest of the country.
Cineworld has said it will sell the St Andrew’s Street cinema or its self-branded screens at Cambridge Leisure Park following a Competition Commission ruling.
The commission’s decision came after Cineworld’s £47 million purchase of art-house chain City Screen’s 21 cinemas.
In the House of Lords, independent crossbench peer the Earl of Clancarty said the ruling that Cineworld should sell one of its cinemas in Cambridge, Bury St Edmunds and Aberdeen was “misguided and culturally insensitive”.
He said it put at risk the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse, which hosted the Cambridge Film Festival and has been called an “exemplary regional art-house cinema” by the British Film Institute (BFI).
He urged the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to “use all its influence to intervene to have this ruling overturned”.
Lady Kidron, an independent crossbench peer who, as Beeban Kidron, also directed the acclaimed BBC adaptation of Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, said there had been a growing imbalance between arts funding in London and the rest of the country over recent decades.
She told peers at question time: “If we are to address this cultural imbalance we need to build on the success of existing art venues such as the excellent art-house cinema in Cambridge that does so much more than show films.”
She asked Government spokesman Lord Gardiner of Kimble: “Could the DCMS through the relationship with the BFI find a way of distinguishing between commercial screens and the added culture value that art-house cinema provides?”
For Labour, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara said it was a “grievous and terrible thing to contemplate the loss of three such Picturehouses” and urged the Government to act.
Lord Gardiner told peers: “I entirely understand and indeed sympathise with your concerns.”
But he said the responsibility for regulating mergers falls to “independent competition authorities”.
He added: “I know that the BFI have already communicated their concerns to the Competition Commission and it is open to concerned parties to apply for a review of the decision.”
A petition opposing the closure of the Arts Picturehouse was signed by more than 14,000 people and the battle could go to court.
The commission says it is “confident” a buyer can be found and does not believe the future of any movie houses will be “jeopardised”.