Edinburgh International Film Festival and Edinburgh Filmhouse cease trading due to £200k hike in energy bills

Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), Filmhouse Cinema in Edinburgh and Belmont Filmhouse in Aberdeen will cease trading immediately, following the huge spike in energy costs.

The trustees of Centre for the Moving Image (CMI), the parent charity which runs the film companies, have appointed Tom MacLennan and Chad Griffin of FRP Advisory as joint administrators.

The charity said it is facing the perfect storm of sharply rising costs, in particular energy costs, alongside reduced trade due to the ongoing impacts of the pandemic and the cost of living crisis.

Even with the recently announced energy price cap for businesses, CMI say their energy costs are rising by around a staggering £200,000 over the next 12 months.

Other impacts include a lack of funding, as the charity says the Scottish Government have indicated that the outlook beyond March 2023 for public funding is highly uncertain, making planning beyond that point almost impossible.

The move casts doubt over the future of the EIFF, which has been an iconic part of the Edinburgh festivals since 1947, and has seen actors such as Sean Connery, Gene Kelly, Jacques Tati, Jennifer Lawrence, Tilda Swinton, Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, David Cronenberg, Cate Blanchett and Clint Eastwood walk on its red carpets.

The board of the CMI said: “We have been proud to have led the CMI through incredibly challenging times, and in particular during the worst days of the pandemic.

“Unfortunately, the combination of sharply increasing energy and other costs, together with both the lasting impacts of the pandemic and the rapidly emerging cost of living crisis affecting cinema attendances, means that we have had no other option but to appoint administrators at this time.

“We would like to put on record our immense gratitude to the entire staff team whose passion for film as an artform and for the audiences and communities we work with and serve has remained undented by the challenges of recent years. We’re fully aware that this will be an exceptionally stressful time for them.”