A FORMER cinema building in Leith is to be used as a venue for one of the city's key art festivals.
The State Cinema building is to be used by the Hidden Door festival, which runs for ten days in May and June.
The 1938 art deco cinema, currently empty, will accompany the nearby Leith Theatre as a venue for the festival, which has a programme of music, visual art, theatre, film, spoken word and dance.
The fifth running of the festival, from May 25 to June 3, includes an "expanded" event from the Edinburgh International Film Festival, which will present a celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the super-hero film Blade, which stars Wesley Snipe.
The event, EIFF Play: Eternal Night, "will look and feel like walking into the trailblazing film which paved the way for the Marvel universe as it exists today" the festival said.
Programme highlights include Young Fathers, from Leith, who will play a "homecoming gig" after a recent UK tour.
The opening night will feature Gwenno, plus Stina Tweeddale of Honeyblood, Dream Wife and Nadine Shah.
Twelve companies will present new theatrical works, and the nearby Village Pub Theatre will stage three nights of mini-plays.
Thirty one artists will present visual art works for the festival.
There is also a spoken word line-up, with 12 artists alongside a Flint and Pitch night curated by Jenny Lindsay.
In the House of 1000 Stories as writers Kirsty Logan, Ryan Vance and Heather Parry explores the art of the short story.
David Martin, Creative Director of Hidden Door, said: “This year, Hidden Door feels like it has firmly established itself in the festival canon in Edinburgh.
"We are really excited to be working with a number Edinburgh’s acclaimed international festivals, such as Edinburgh International Film Festival, Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival, Edinburgh International Children's Festival and Edinburgh International Science Festival - all bringing something surprising and new to the mix.
“We are proud to create a festival which celebrates the innovation and ambitious experimentation that is so strong in Scotland today."
Jack Hunter, Chair of Leith Theatre Trust, said: “Following the success of last year’s partnership, the event will deliver huge benefits for the Leith Theatre project, raising the profile of the campaign and helping our community-led trust to drive forward the regeneration of this important historic and cultural asset.
"The Festival will further showcase the building's potential as one of Scotland’s most exciting new music and arts venues."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel