The 107 former employees of the Centre for the Moving Image (CMI) - parent company of the Edinburgh Filmhouse, Aberdeen's Belmont Filmhouse and the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) - have started a welfare fund.
The GoFundMe campaign is aiming to raise £50,000 to pay 40 members of staff around one month’s pay, at the real living wage rate, based on their previously worked hours; with a cushion for unforeseen needs.
A variety of different roles were made redundant without warning on 6 October, as the CMI entered administration and the cinemas closed.
"The fund is targeted towards staff members who had been employed for less than two years and as such will not receive redundancy pay, along with those who have dependents to provide for and anyone else who finds themselves in precarious situations due loss of income," read the page.
In the instance that there should be excess or unclaimed funds, these will be donated to our former small partner festivals, any paid training opportunities through Creative Scotland or Screenskills for staff, and the rest to charity.
The fundraiser has been organised by Patti Mroz and Ali Campbell, two former Filmhouse supervisors, and Bel Ingham, a former front of house member of staff. At the time of writing, almost £600 had been raised.
"Many of our dedicated staff had started work after the pandemic, whether as front of house assistants, supervisors, marketing assistants, bar staff or in more senior roles," commented Mroz.
"With less than two years under their belt at CMI, these staff members are not entitled to any redundancy, and only minimal loss of notice pay.
"We believe all workers deserve fair treatment, which is something that former CMI employees have not received - the rug was pulled from under our feet with no time to prepare - this precarious situation does not allow people the time to consider the next steps of their career path, taking into account the skills and experience they already have, and risks the loss of valuable expertise to the industry.
"We have been so touched by people's generous donations so far, especially at a time of rising financial insecurity."
Separately, Edinburgh was lit up with images of cinema classics, as campaigners try to save the world’s longest continuously running film festival, which went bust after what the CMI called a “perfect storm of sharply rising costs, in particular energy costs”.
On Monday, people in the Scottish capital could see images from landmark films Gregory’s Girl, The Wizard of Oz, It’s a Wonderful Life and Local Hero.
Mark Cousins, filmmaker and Edinburgh resident, said: “I’d like to keep the flame alive, to express the love of Filmhouse and EIFF and their loss - our shock, grief and anger - by projecting images.”
The Filmhouse in Edinburgh’s Lothian Road now has its windows and doors covered in metal protective sheeting - and was one of the city’s landmarks to have cinema stills beamed on to it.
Another was Salisbury Crags, a landmark which is seen by tens-of-thousands throughout the west of the city, which featured film stills with the message “love Filmhouse and Edinburgh Film Festival”.
The EIFF was established in 1947, making it the world’s oldest continuously running film festival.
Over the years, stars including Clint Eastwood, Sir Sean Connery, John Huston, Gene Kelly, Jennifer Lawrence, Tilda Swinton, Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, David Cronenberg and Cate Blanchett attended its events.
The festival has also screened a host of UK premieres, including Blade Runner, Alien, Back To The Future, Taxi Driver, Annie Hall, Withnail & I, The Usual Suspects, Amelie and The Hurt Locker.
After the CMI called in the administrators, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said her government would do all it can to support the “important cultural organisations”.
A petition to demand help to save the organisations has so-far been backed by more than 23,000 people, with filmmaker Paul Sng, who helped start the signature drive, stating it was “vital that independent cinemas such as Filmhouse exist to provide us with the opportunity to experience films this way”.
Rod White, who was head of programming at Filmhouse, said the “notable silver lining” to the charity’s demise had been the “the outpouring of love for the cinema and EIFF, and the clear determination of an awful lot of people to do something about it”.
A firm of solicitors was also contacted by more than 20 former staff, who are looking to start an employment tribunal against the CMI, claiming that the lack of staff consultation broke the law.
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