2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Ewen Bremner credits reborn cinema for his career in acting
He recalled visiting the art house cinema for the first time as a teenager and being blown away by the Wim Wenders' romantic fantasy Wings of Desire.
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Bremner admitted he feared the Filmhouse - which reopened at the weekend nearly three years after a financial crisis led to its sudden closure - had been lost forever.
He and his daughter, Harmony Rose-Bremner, who is pursuing her own acting career, both spoke at a launch event for the Filmhouse, which has been brought back to life largely thanks to a £1.5m lifeline from the UK Government.
Ewan McGregor and Ewen Bremner starred in T2 Trainspotting.
The pair were among the many stars who back a long-running campaign to reopen the former church, which was turned into the Filmhouse in 1979.
Others included Brian Cox, Alan Cumming, Jack Lowden, Emma Thompson, Dougray Scott, Kate Dickie and Timothy Spall.
Harmony-Rose Remner. (Image: Supplied)
Actor Denis Lawson also spoke at the new-look Filmhouse on Sunday to introduce a special screening of writer and director Bill Forsyth's classic Scottish comedy Local Hero.
A group of former staff, led by former chief executive Ginnie Atkinson, led a rescue bid to bring the Filmhouse back to life.
Actor Ewen Bremner was one of the actors who backed the campaign to bring Edinburgh's Filmhouse cinema back from the dead.
Although the Lothian Road building went onto the open market, new owners Caledonian Heritable, who own a number of bars and restaurants in the city, agreed a long-term lease with a new Filmhouse charity which has allowed them to refurbish and reopen the cinema.
Ewen Bremner said: 'I'm delighted to be here and so grateful for the fight that Ginnie and her team fought to bring this cinema back from what we all felt was the end of an era.
'It didn't seem like there was really a chance that that this amazing asset to the city could survive the crisis it had gone through and find a future.
'I have benefited an unmentionable from my experiences in this building from when I first saw Wings of Desire here. I must have been about 16. It just blew my mind.
'There are so many films I have seen here that only come to the Filmhouse. They don't come to mainstream cinemas.
'The programme that the Filmhouse provides is just kaleidoscopic. There are so many films shown every month that you can absorb here. There's nothing like it.
'That's been a big part of my education as someone who didn't train as an actor. It was a massive resource to me and I appreciate it to so much.'
Harmony Rose-Bremner said: 'The Filmhouse really has been a big part of my education of cinema, the expanding of my horizons of what film could be and delving into completely new worlds.
'The cinema is a place where you go to escape. After the pandemic, with the rise of streamers, everything has become smaller and smaller. I know people who watch whole films on their phones now.
'But it really feels like you can't be transported to another world if you are only looking into a tiny screen.
'Places like this are so important for future generations so that it doesn't become the norm to just be on your phone.
'This place has been monumental in my education as an actor. I am so happy to see it reopened.'
