"Incredible kindness" boosts Chichester Cinema at New Park during lockdown

Walter is predicting an overwhelming urge to see cinema once we all emerge the other side of the ongoing coronavirus crisis.

“The messages that we have been getting are so heart-warming. That has been the best part of it all, the whole thing. We have just had so many lovely messages from people saying how much they will miss us and that they can’t wait to see us again.

“We have had to give back a lot of money as refunds, but the amount of money that people have just given back to us as donations without us even asking has been incredible.

“And I think that’s the thing. People just love the cinema. People see it as a haven where they can come to watch a film and really enjoy the film.”

While stressing there is definitely a place for the multiplexes, Chichester Cinema at New Park prides itself on offering a non-multiplex experience.

“We usually show the films in the second or third week but people wait to see them with us because they prefer the atmosphere that we offer and they like the fact of sitting with like-minded people.”

All of which offers cause for hope in the days ahead which are certain to get darker still.

Management, box office and projection are all paid staff at the cinema, and they will be looked after, Walter stressed. They will still be paid for the moment.

In a way, it is harder for the volunteers who come along and really cherish the companionship working at the cinema gives them, he said.

“This is going to be three to six months probably, and it is going to hurt a lot. And that’s at the back of my mind. We have got to keep the positivity coming out.”

In the cinema’s mailing list, Walter has started to include quiz questions, all a good way of drawing people in and making them feel part of the cinema still.

“At first it is going to be pretty easy to maintain the spirit, but after the Prime Minister’s (shutdown) announcement, it could be more difficult. In another three weeks there could be another announcement that things are getting firmer. That will be difficult, but it will not too difficult to keep trying to keep spirits up.

“But I am a blue-sky thinker generally. I do genuinely think that people will appreciate the cinema all the more when we can reopen, and I think that will go for all arts organisations. People will be raring to go.”

Walter was all ready with ten weeks of cinema for the spring season when the crisis started to bite. He was just about to sign off on the new season.

Then he tried to scale things down to three or four weeks and had already set up the auditorium in a way which would have permitted adequate social distancing. And then closure came.

But his point is that the cinema has got ten weeks of cinema which are ready to go.

“We have still got all those films that are still bubbling away. And then when we open, there will be all those films which were being released later in the year as well that we would be showing then.”

Obviously, release dates will be reconsidered to avoid too many clashes, and doubtless some of the autumn films will be set back to accommodate those films forced off their spring release dates.

“But there will be a lot of films and there will be a lot of people wanting to watch them. And then we will have all the films that are being made at the moment but which have been stopped.

“We have also got a podcast that has recently started. We are going to keep doing that. And I might do a live stream of a film quiz and get as many people as possible watching. And I have got the weekly email with advice for people as to what they can do.”

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