Tyneside Cinema
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The Tyneside Cinema is Newcastle upon Tyne's only full time independent cultural cinema.
Specialising in screening independent and world cinema from across the globe, the building was formerly Newcastle's News Theatre, built in 1937 by Dixon Scott, the Great Uncle of Sir Ridley and Tony Scott.
The Tyneside, reopened in May 2008, now has significant restoration of the Cinema's heritage as a former newsreel cinema, sitting alongside a modern redevelopment of the upper floors, creating two new screens, the Electra and The Roxy, a new bar, and the film learning centre the Tyneside Studio, partly designed by filmmaker Mike Figgis.
The building is now accessible throughout for wheelchair users or anyone with difficulty with stairs, and boasts state of the art digital projection facilities alongside the more traditional 35mm.
The project was completed with support from Heritage Lottery Fund, Tyne And Wear Partnership, European Regional Development Fund, and many other trusts and foundations. The Tyneside project was also well supported by members of the public, with over 700 individual donors giving to the redevelopment.
Alongside its regular core programme of cultural cinema, the Tyneside now celebrates its history as a newsreel cinema with daily free screenings of archive newsreel footage and guided tours.
The Tyneside's patrons are filmmakers Mike Figgis and Mike Hodges, and musicians Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys and Paul Smith of Maxïmo Park.
