London’s Love for Open-Air Cinema

Sitting on the rooftop of a tall building in East London, people stare at the pink sky waiting impatiently for the sun to go down. An older couple sip on colourful summer cocktails. A boy and a girl kiss, as they snuggle into a comfortable chair for two. A group of girlfriends laugh noisily, showing off their knowledge of the movie’s best quotes. The darkness descends, the cine-projector lights up, and everyone falls under the spell of an open-air cinema. It’s a communion of joy, shared by young people – eager to discover something new – and their elders, who happily indulge in some sweet nostalgia.

 

Jo Brodie, a movie fan and outdoor cinema blogger, believes that “a familiar film screened in a familiar location
becomes an order of magnitude more exciting when seen outside”. ‘’Unlike darkened cinemas, there is a bigger sense of a shared experience when it’s open air because you can see the rest of the audience,” Jo says.

Outdoor screenings make it easy to bump into enthusiastic viewers singing along to soundtrack hits or lip-synching the most memorable quotes of timeless classics.

And that joyous atmosphere has made open-air cinemas more and more popular in recent years, with many firms offering shows in different venues across London. They are, however, part of a long tradition,
dating back to the early 1900s. Older readers will remember the famous drive-ins, which became the most popular form of outdoor cinema in 1950s America and left a stamp on the collective imagination.

 

Exporting the format to England was risky but that didn’t stop George Wood, managing director of Luna Cinema, from challenging London’s unpredictable weather. ‘’We try to do something different,” he says. “Through the carefully chosen surroundings, the dressed up trees, the good food, we make sure people can see classic movies in a completely different way.”

Indeed, outdoor screenings come in various formats: from deckchairs on a rooftop to picnics with blankets on the grass. And the experience is often enriched with fairy lights, lanterns, food stalls and occasionally live orchestras. The setting itself becomes the main actor in this cinematic experience. ‘’We choose films that will suit the setting. We adapt to the venue. We make sure that everything is consistent, providing much more than just a screening,” George Wood says.

Nina Avramova, an enthusiastic London cinema-goer, says an outdoor screening is “more than just watching a movie in the dark. There’s the sunset, the fresh air, the sights. And in the meantime, you explore wonderful venues that you would never see otherwise”.

It’s hard not to love the movies projected in these open-air cinemas. “We always try and focus on feel-good movies,” says David Leydon, founder of Pop Up Screens. “We want you to leave happy and smiling.  Movies like Dirty Dancing, for example, are always popular and the audience is almost always up on their feet by the end of the night lifting each other in the air.”

Whether it is for a romantic date or a night out with friends, it is clear people are keen to take advantage of the short English summer. And nobody should miss a chance to sob at Casablanca’s heart-breaking farewell scene, mimic Rocky Horror’s dance moves or sing along to La La Land’s nostalgic tunes under the city’s starry sky

by Valerio Esposito

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