Festival of Community Cinema

£3 CINEMA TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW!

Grab your popcorn, dust off your fairy lights, and get ready for a nationwide celebration of 100 years of community cinema! This year to marking a century of volunteer-led cinema, we’re throwing a film-loving party like no other. The Festival of Community Cinema is a nation-wide festival running from October - December 2025, showcasing the inspirational and innovative programming of volunteer-led cinemas over the past 100 years, and you can head along to your nearest community cinema and see a film for just £3!

Find your nearest £3 screening at mycommunitycinema.org.uk.

How to Take Part in the Festival:

If you are a community cinema, there is still time to take part in the festival. Each film is available for just £97 per screening and every volunteer led organisation can get involved, we've even created a free tier of membership to allow all groups to take part. See the menu of titles here. For each title you screen as part of the festival, we’re offering a £200 bursary to help make your screening unforgettable. Use it for drinks, decorations, a guest speaker, or popcorn. Your event, your rules. Don’t be shy—book a film, tick the “bursary” box, and tell us how you’ll use the money to bring your film community together in style.

Festival Menu:

Waxworks, Steam Boat Bill Junior, Michel Nyman's Man with a Movie Camera, Notorious, Singing in the Rain, Big City/ Mahangar, Funeral Parade of Roses, Peeping Tom, A Clockwork Orange, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, Cinema Paradiso, Do the Right Thing, Muriel's Wedding, Drylongso, Bend It Like Beckham, Goodbye Dragon Inn, The Pearl Button, I Am Not Your Negro, Moonlight, Be Natural - The Untold Story of Alice Guy Blache, Night of Kings, The People's Joker, Winners, Cure, Ocean.

A message from Cinema For All CEO Jaq Chell:

"With 25 titles to choose from, the festival menu showcases the inspirational and innovative programming of volunteer-led cinemas from 1925, right up to the present day. You’ll find connections to the movement, to significant dates and to important moments - from the first films screened by film societies in the silent era, to highlighting filmmakers beloved by community programmers. From the banned films of 60s and 70s, to the issues and campaigns important to communities both in the past and today. We hope you enjoy the menu, which has been programmed with love by the Cinema For All team, and is designed to give you a moment to celebrate this milestone, whilst also bringing you new audiences as we enter the next 100 years of volunteer film exhibition.

Huge thanks to Filmbankmedia, BFI Distribution and Second Run for allowing us to temporarily offer a selection of titles on the menu. We are proud to work with them under an agreement that allows Cinema For All to charge community cinemas £97 per booking for the duration of the festival. We also thank our Booking Scheme partners Altitude Releasing, Eureka, Matchbox Cine, Modern Films, TAPE Collective and Verve for providing us with such incredible titles to include on the menu.

Finally, we are incredibly grateful that the project is supported by the BFI, awarding funds from the National Lottery and thank the audiences team for their support of the community cinema movement in this special year".