The Cameo is an Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

 cinema

Movie theater

A movie theater, cinema, movie house, picture theater, film theater is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ....

 which started life as the King's Cinema on 8 January 1914 and is one of the oldest cinemas in Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 still in use. Since becoming the Cameo in 1949, it has been an independent cinema with a tradition of showing art house

Art film

An art film is the result of filmmaking which is typically a serious, independent film aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience...

 films. From 1949 onward it has been an important venue for the Edinburgh International Film Festival

Edinburgh International Film Festival

The Edinburgh International Film Festival is an annual fortnight of cinema screenings and related events taking place each June. Established in 1947, it is the world's oldest continually running film festival...

. It is at Tollcross

Tollcross, Edinburgh

Tollcross is a crossroads in the South-West of the City Centre of Edinburgh, Scotland, and also the surrounding area which derives its name from the junction.-Physical description:...

, and since 1992 has been a three-screen cinema.

History

Behind a modern shopfront, much of the cinema's original architectural character remains. The entrance lobby

Lobby (room)

A lobby is a room in a building which is used for entry from the outside. Sometimes referred to as a foyer or an entrance hall.Many office buildings, hotels and skyscrapers go to great lengths to decorate their lobbies to create the right impression....

 has a terrazzo

Terrazzo

Terrazzo is a composite material poured in place or precast, which is used for floor and wall treatments. It consists of marble, quartz, granite, glass or other suitable chips, sprinkled or unsprinkled, and poured with a binder that is cementitious, chemical or a combination of both...

 floor and one of the original pair of ticket kiosk

Kiosk

Kiosk is a small, separated garden pavilion open on some or all sides. Kiosks were common in Persia, India, Pakistan, and in the Ottoman Empire from the 13th century onward...

s. An inner foyer leads to the main cinema built within the 'back green' or 'back court' (courtyard) of a tenement block. Cinemas were once built like this elsewhere in Scotland, the biggest being the Rosevale in Partick

Partick

Partick is an area of Glasgow on the north bank of the River Clyde, just across from Govan. To the west lies Whiteinch. Partick was a Police burgh from 1852 until 1912 when it was incorporated into the city.-History:...

, but the Cameo is the only one still operating.

The original screen was mirrored, the first mirrored screen in Scotland, and there were 673 seats in an auditorium showing silent films with orchestral accompaniment, supplied at one time by Madam Egger's Ladies' Costume Orchestra. In 1930 the cinema was fitted for sound and could start showing talkies

Sound film

A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...

. The space has been left largely unchanged structurally, but the audience now have better sightlines and more comfort with fewer than half the original number of seats. There is an abundance of ornamental plasterwork: columns, cornice

Cornice

Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...

s, decorative moulding

Molding (decorative)

Molding or moulding is a strip of material with various profiles used to cover transitions between surfaces or for decoration. It is traditionally made from solid milled wood or plaster but may be made from plastic or reformed wood...

s on walls and ceilings.

Jim Poole

In 1949 the cinema was renamed the Cameo by the new owner, Jim Poole (1911–1998), a member of the Poole family who were known for their touring Myriorama

Myriorama

Myriorama originally meant a set of illustrated cards which 19th century children could arrange and re-arrange, forming different pictures. Later in the century the name was also applied to shows using a sequence of impressive visual effects to entertain and inform an audience...

 shows and who ran cinemas in Scotland and England. He had been in charge of two of the family's cinemas in Aberdeen

Aberdeen

Aberdeen is Scotland's third most populous city, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas and the United Kingdom's 25th most populous city, with an official population estimate of ....

 before the Second World War, and after a posting as army entertainments officer in the Middle East, wanted to open a venue in Edinburgh where he could show foreign films.

The Cameo included art house and 'continental'

Continental Europe

Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....

 films in its repertoire and started its association with the Edinburgh Film Festival in 1949, when it presented a 'Continental Film Festival', including a screen version of Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...

's Les jeux sont faits

Les jeux sont faits

Les jeux sont faits is a screenplay written by Jean-Paul Sartre in 1943 and published in 1947. The title translates literally as "The Plays are Made", an idiomatic French expression used mainly in casino gambling meaning the bets have been placed. An English translation was made from the French...

, alongside the documentaries being shown by the Edinburgh Film Guild. Monsieur Hulot's Holiday

Monsieur Hulot's Holiday

Les Vacances de M. Hulot Les Vacances de M. Hulot Les Vacances de M. Hulot (released as Monsieur Hulot's Holiday in the UK and US as Mr. Hulot's Holiday, is a comedy film starring and directed by Jacques Tati. It introduced the pipe-smoking, well-meaning but clumsy character of Monsieur Hulot, who...

(1953) and Annie Hall

Annie Hall

Annie Hall is a 1977 American romantic comedy directed by Woody Allen from a screenplay co-written with Marshall Brickman and co-starring Diane Keaton. One of Allen's most popular and most honored films, it won four Academy Awards including Best Picture...

(1977) were among Poole's successes in attracting good audiences for films not being shown by the big chains.

Poole had begun by rescuing a decaying building with a leaky roof. Later he was able to take over an adjacent shop which, in December 1963, became the first licensed cinema bar in the city, despite neighbours' objections. When Poole retired in 1982 the Cameo stayed shut until 1986.

After 1986

Once the Edinburgh Filmhouse had opened in 1979 a few hundred yards away, the Cameo was no longer the only public cinema in Edinburgh showing alternative and foreign-language films. After a new owner took possession in 1986 more neighbouring shops were acquired to create space for second and third screens which opened in the early 1990s. A 2005 renovation plan proposing to change the original auditorium into a bar-restaurant was withdrawn after a well-supported 'Save the Cameo' campaign influenced council

City council

A city council or town council is the legislative body that governs a city, town, municipality or local government area.-Australia & NZ:Because of the differences in legislation between the States, the exact definition of a City Council varies...

 decision-making. In September 2006 Historic Scotland

Historic Scotland

Historic Scotland is an executive agency of the Scottish Government, responsible for historic monuments in Scotland.-Role:As its website states:...

 upgraded the conservation status of the cinema to a B listing, thus protecting the interior from future alteration. The Cinema Theatre Association had campaigned for this after the owners, City Screen

Picturehouse Cinemas

Picturehouse Cinemas is a network of art house cinemas in the United Kingdom. it has 19 sites, all in England and Scotland.The first Picturehouse opened in Oxford in 1989, but many of its cinemas operated independently before being adopted by City Screen Ltd., the official trading name of the...

, put the Cameo up for sale. They have now taken it off the market, drawn up new refurbishment plans, and invited contributions from sponsors.

The first film shown at the Cameo, in March 1949, was La symphonie pastorale

La Symphonie pastorale

La Symphonie Pastorale is a 1946 French language film drama directed by Jean Delannoy and starring Michèle Morgan and Pierre Blanchar.The film is based on the novella La Symphonie Pastorale by André Gide and adapted to the screen by Jean Aurenche. The film score was by Georges Auric...

, a rare surviving print of which was shown again at the cinema in March 2009 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the building re-opening as the Cameo.

The Cinema was named as one of the 10 best Independent Cinemas in the Guardian in January 2010.

Famous visitors

Lillian Gish

Lillian Gish

Lillian Diana Gish was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987....

, Orson Welles

Orson Welles

George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...

, Melina Mercouri

Melina Mercouri

Melina Mercouri , born as Maria Amalia Mercouri was a Greek actress, singer and politician.As an actress she made her film debut in Stella and met international success with her performances in Never on Sunday, Phaedra, Topkapi and Promise at Dawn...

 and Cary Grant

Cary Grant

Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...

 all visited the cinema in one Festival season or another. Sean Connery

Sean Connery

Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...

, who was born nearby, opened the bar in 1963. More recently Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...

 was there when Pulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction (film)

Pulp Fiction is a 1994 American crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino, who co-wrote its screenplay with Roger Avary. The film is known for its rich, eclectic dialogue, ironic mix of humor and violence, nonlinear storyline, and host of cinematic allusions and pop culture references...

opened in 1994 and Irvine Welsh

Irvine Welsh

Irvine Welsh is a contemporary Scottish novelist, best known for his novel Trainspotting. His work is characterised by raw Scottish dialect, and brutal depiction of the realities of Edinburgh life...

 was at the Cameo for the première of Trainspotting

Trainspotting (film)

Trainspotting is a 1996 British satirical/drama film directed by Danny Boyle based on the novel of the same name by Irvine Welsh. The movie follows a group of heroin addicts in a late 1980s economically depressed area of Edinburgh and their passage through life...

in February 1996.

Other famous visitors throughout the years include Danny Boyle

Danny Boyle

Daniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director...

, Richard E. Grant

Richard E. Grant

Richard E. Grant is a Swaziland-born British actor, screenwriter and director. His most notable role came in the film Withnail and I. He holds dual British and Swazi citizenship.-Early life:...

, Robert Carlyle

Robert Carlyle

Robert Carlyle, OBE is a Scottish film and television actor. He is known for a variety of roles including those in Trainspotting, Hamish Macbeth, The Full Monty, The World Is Not Enough, Angela's Ashes, The 51st State, and 28 Weeks Later...

, Michele Morgan

Michèle Morgan

Michèle Morgan is a French film actress, who was a leading lady for three decades.- Career :Morgan was born Simone Renée Roussel in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, a western suburb of Paris....

, Peter Mullan

Peter Mullan

Peter Mullan is a Scottish actor and film-maker who has been appearing in films since 1990.-Early life:Mullan, the sixth of eight children, was born in Peterhead in the northeast of Scotland, the son of Patricia, a nurse, and Charles Mullan, a lab technician who worked at Glasgow University. He...

, Mark Kermode

Mark Kermode

Mark Kermode is an English film critic, musician and a member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He contributes to Sight and Sound magazine, The Observer newspaper and BBC Radio 5 Live, where he presents Kermode and Mayo's Film Reviews with Simon Mayo on Friday afternoons...

, Claire Denis

Claire Denis

Claire Denis is a French film director and Professor of Film at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.-Early life:...

, Rutger Hauer, Liam Gallagher

Liam Gallagher

William John Paul "Liam" Gallagher is an English musician and singer-songwriter, the former frontman of the English rock band Oasis and currently of the band Beady Eye. Gallagher's erratic behaviour, distinctive singing style, and abrasive attitude have been the subject of commentary in the press...

, Patsy Kensit

Patsy Kensit

Patricia Jude Francis "Patsy" Kensit is an English actress, singer, model and former child star, known for her television and film appearances. Her films include Lethal Weapon 2 and she has been married to rock stars Jim Kerr and Liam Gallagher, as well as herself fronting the band Eighth Wonder...

, Ewan McGregor

Ewan McGregor

Ewan Gordon McGregor is a Scottish actor. He has had success in mainstream, indie, and art house films. McGregor is perhaps best known for his roles as heroin addict Mark Renton in the drama Trainspotting , young Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy , and poet Christian in the...

, Tim Roth

Tim Roth

Simon Timothy "Tim" Roth is an English film actor and director best known for his roles in the American films,Legend of 1900, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Four Rooms, Skellig, Planet of the Apes, The Incredible Hulk and Rob Roy, receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for...

, Guy Ritchie

Guy Ritchie

Guy Stuart Ritchie is an English screenwriter and film maker who directed Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Revolver, RocknRolla and Sherlock Holmes.-Early life:...

, Ken Loach

Ken Loach

Kenneth "Ken" Loach is a Palme D'Or winning English film and television director.He is known for his naturalistic, social realist directing style and for his socialist beliefs, which are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as homelessness , labour rights and child abuse at the...

, Bruce Campbell

Bruce Campbell

Bruce Lorne Campbell is an American film and television actor. As a cult movie actor, Campbell starred as Ashley J. "Ash" Williams in Sam Raimi's Evil Dead series of films and he has starred in many low-budget cult films such as Crimewave, Maniac Cop, Bubba Ho-tep, Escape From L.A. and Sundown:...

, Billy Bragg

Billy Bragg

Stephen William Bragg , better known as Billy Bragg, is an English alternative rock musician and left-wing activist. His music blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs, and his lyrics mostly deal with political or romantic themes...

, Park Chan-wook

Park Chan-wook

Park Chan-wook is a South Korean film director, screenwriter, producer, and former film critic. One of the most acclaimed and popular filmmakers in his native country, Park is most known for his films Joint Security Area, Thirst and what has become known as The Vengeance Trilogy, consisting of...

, Ray Winstone

Ray Winstone

Raymond Andrew "Ray" Winstone is an English film and television actor. He is mostly known for his "tough guy" roles, beginning with that of Carlin in the 1979 film Scum and as Will Scarlet in the cult television adventure series Robin of Sherwood. He has also become well known as a voice over...

, Robyn Hitchcock

Robyn Hitchcock

Robyn Rowan Hitchcock is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. While primarily a vocalist and guitarist, he also plays harmonica, piano and bass guitar....

, Neil Jordan

Neil Jordan

Neil Patrick Jordan is an Irish filmmaker and novelist. He won an Academy Award for The Crying Game.- Early life :...

, Roy Keane

Roy Keane

Roy Maurice Keane is an Irish former footballer and manager. In his 18-year playing career, he played for Cobh Ramblers in the League of Ireland, Nottingham Forest and Manchester United, before ending his career at Celtic in Scotland....

, Charlize Theron

Charlize Theron

Charlize Theron is a South African actress, film producer and former fashion model.She rose to fame in the late 1990s following her roles in 2 Days in the Valley, Mighty Joe Young, The Devil's Advocate and The Cider House Rules...

, Duncan Jones

Duncan Jones

Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones , also known as Zowie Bowie is an English film director, best known for directing the science fiction films Moon and Source Code .-Childhood and family life:...

, Michael Redgrave

Michael Redgrave

Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave, CBE was an English stage and film actor, director, manager and author.-Youth and education:...

, Jim Dale

Jim Dale

Jim Dale, MBE is an English actor, voice artist, singer and songwriter. He is best known in the United Kingdom for his many appearances in the Carry On series of films and in the US for narrating the Harry Potter audiobook series, for which he received two Grammy Awards, and the ABC series Pushing...

 and Danny Dyer

Danny Dyer

Danny Dyer is an English actor, media personality, and chairman of Greenwich Borough, a non-League football team.-Biography:Daniel John Dyer was born in Custom House, an area of East London, to Antony and Christine Dyer...

.

In popular culture

The cinema appears in Sylvain Chomet

Sylvain Chomet

Sylvain Chomet is a French comic writer, animator and film director.- Early career :Born in Maisons-Laffitte, Yvelines, near Paris, he studied art at high-school until he graduated in 1982. Chomet moved to London in 1988 to work as an animator at the Richard Purdum studio...

's film The Illusionist. While hiding from the young couple, the main character, Tatischeff, accidentally enters the cinema, where Jacques Tati

Jacques Tati

Jacques Tati was a French filmmaker, working as a comedic actor, writer and director. In a poll conducted by Entertainment Weekly of the Greatest Movie Directors Tati was voted the 46th greatest of all time...

's Mon Oncle

Mon Oncle

Mon Oncle is a 1958 film comedy by French filmmaker Jacques Tati. The first of Tati's films to be released in colour, Mon Oncle won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, a Special Prize at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival, and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign...

is playing. This is an in-joke as Tatischeff is largely based on Tati, the film itself having been adapted from a script of his. Other films with scenes filmed inside the Cameo include Helena Bonham Carter

Helena Bonham Carter

Helena Bonham Carter is an English actress of film, stage, and television. She made her acting debut in a television adaptation of K. M. Peyton's A Pattern of Roses before winning her first film role as the titular character in Lady Jane...

's Woman Talking Dirty

Women Talking Dirty

Women Talking Dirty is a 1999 Scottish comedy film starring Helena Bonham Carter and Gina McKee. It is an adaptation of the novel, Women Talking Dirty, written by Isla Dewar who wrote the screenplay as well.- Premise :...

and Richard Jobson

Richard Jobson (television presenter)

Richard Jobson is a Scottish singer-songwriter and film-maker, best known as a television presenter, film director, producer and screenwriter.-Early life:...

's A Woman In Winter.