Brechin’s new community cinema is “surviving” despite disappointing audience numbers in its first six months.
Spokesman for Flicks, Mark Arbuthnott said the cinema has showings scheduled into next year but admitted they are always only “one or two poor shows away from having to call it a day”.
The silver screen was brought back to the town by the Brechin Community Cinema Project following a partnership with FilmMobile Scotland.
Brechin had been without regular film showings since the mid-1980s and the Flicks name pays tribute to one of Scotland’s most popular nightclubs from that era.
Mr Arbuthnott said margins were “very tight”.
He said: “When we have big releases, such as The Minions, we get pretty good figures but there is still room for improvement.
“We have been well supported by the older members of our community and those with young families, but we are still well short of our maximum capacity of 250 per film.
“Our middle film which is generally aimed at the teenage audience has not been well attended and we may look to drop this for an alternative if we can’t get teenagers to support us.”
He said the cinema had worked very hard and he is predicting exciting days ahead up until early next year despite the lower than expected footfall at showings.
Sing-a-long A Frozen is scheduled for early December as well as the new Bond film Spectre, while Sunset Song will be shown in January.
He added: “We hope that we can keep our audience so that we can develop the cinema and it is our hope to establish an annual Brechin Film Festival, something neither Forfar, Montrose or Arbroath can boast, in conjunction with FilmHub Scotland perhaps as early as next year.
“However, this all depends on continued and growing support from the community we are always only one or two poor shows away from having to call it a day.”
Chalmers in Arbroath has been showing movies in its filmhouse with great success, while the Montrose Playhouse Project is raising money to bring a cinema to the town.
Details of future shows at Flicks can be found on the cinema’s Facebook page www.facebook/regalkingbrechin.