Two years ago, Europa Cinemas put forward a strong commitment towards sustainability and diversity & inclusion. Ensuring we reach beyond the barriers to find ways that European diversity isn’t based only on social class means taking a look at how these things are put into practice: through initiatives in cinemas, cinema design in and practical mechanisms.

Joanna Stankiewicz from Cinema Without Barriers, presented their work on creating a model of accessible film screenings that can be replicated in other places. Launched in 2022, they decided to start with two screenings each week. Beginning with a research project, they ensured they knew what their disabled audiences wanted to watch and when, and what was truly needed. They founded the first focus group when they were drafting the applications for funding, and this guaranteed success from the very start. What began as a project on inclusivity and accessibility, has also become about community building. Although it was not the goal in the beginning, they have built a loyal audience regularly attend screenings.

Stankiewicz also underlined the importance of advocating for legislative changes and creating a collaborative model to ensure real implementation of accessibility laws in countries where they do not exist.

Once launched, they also applied for Collaborate to Innovate funding to test the model in other places, and to develop and improve the project and create an accessible cinema tool box to share in other countries (Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Romania) that have similar values and history (in terms of cinema and institutional treatment of disabilities). They also received support from the Audience Development Fund from Creative Europe Media.

Jean-Marc Lala, Architect and Professor at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris la Villette, presented his work in renovation and construction of cinemas.

Key elements to take into account when renovating a cinema space include attention to energy expenses (heating, ventilation, climatisation), as well projection (laser and retrofit), lighting (daylight), renewable energies (solar, wind, geothermal) and building recycling (using existing buildings), infrastructure from insulation to solar protection.

Maeve Cooke, Managing Director at access>CINEMA in Ireland presented an initiative called NAI (New Audiences Initiative), which launched in 2022. This initiative started as a response to a post-Covid phenomenon where audience members were slowly but surely returning to cinemas, but there was a polarisation in terms of what audiences wanted to see. They were not returning to see films that were considered more challenging, and Cooke wanted to reach out to potential new audiences that had moved from cities to rural areas during the pandemic.

They chose titles that did not sound on paper as escapism or fun but could be seen as ‘difficult’, like documentaries or animation for adult audiences. Next, they produced communication materials for each film and involved their programmers (for example in Q&As with directors or in artwork design).

Verena Von Stackelberg, Founder, Manager and Programmer for Wolf Kino in Berlin, explained that their cinema is situated in a gentrified area which is very diverse, but also mixed in terms of social class. People that usually go to their cinema are international, and already aware of arthouse cinema, coming mostly from educated backgrounds. 

When they opened the cinema, it was seen as a gift for children, but in the end they did not become a regular audience. The cinema team started running weekly workshops with teenagers at a local school with a majority of kids from migrant backgrounds. The group changed every year, but the school became aware of the cinema and the bond between the cinema and the youth strengthened.

Photos courtesy of Gediminas Gražys.