Aldeburgh Cinema has shown films from the same single screen on the High Street since 1919, when local draper Walter Hill opened it as the Aldeburgh Picture House. Composer Benjamin Britten was among a consortium of townspeople who bought the building in 1965 to keep it running, and in 2013 it passed into the care of the Aldeburgh Cinema Trust, a registered charity. A small paid staff and a team of volunteers run daily screenings alongside live relays from the National Theatre and Royal Opera House. Each November the cinema hosts the Aldeburgh Documentary Festival, founded by filmmaker Molly Dineen, drawing audiences to the town for a weekend built around new non-fiction film. The auditorium keeps its original raked seating and proscenium arch, and the projection box opens onto the High Street rather than sitting behind a modern multiplex frontage.
Surveyed