Ilkley Cinema has won Cinema of the Year (24 screens and under) at The Big Screen Awards 2022 held in London last weekend.
The awards celebrate the remarkable achievements of people and companies releasing films into UK cinemas and connecting them with audiences.
Ilkley Cinema was one of six short listed for the Cinema of the Year (24 screens and under) category and earned approval across the board from the jury who commented that a supporting entry video gave them a real sense of the warm welcome offered by Ilkley Cinema, as well as the pride in the venue taken by its staff.
Ilkley Cinema opened in 2015 as a single-screen cinema by partners John Tate and John Hewitt, and expanded in 2018 to accommodate a second screen, John Tate told Ilkley Chat: "We are still in shock that our little indie won cinema of the year. We are thankful to our amazing team and all our customers for their ongoing support. We wouldn’t be here without them."
“A well-presented submission that demonstrates a passionate and professional approach to cinema,” said one of our judges, who added, “Ilkley Cinema engaged the local community while also making smart commercial decisions.
“An impressively diverse film programme this past year has seen smaller independent and foreign-language titles play at Ilkley, while the local Ukrainian community was served with a dubbed version of Top Gun: Maverick. An expansion of captioned screenings has yielded strong local engagement.”
The full list of winners and finalists is available here.