Tucked behind Leicester Square, this cinema has been home to a sold-out New Year’s Day screening of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, movie marathons spanning the full range of ‘cult’ (everything from the Twilight saga, to the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, to David Lynch binges – go to one of their eight-hour mystery showcases at your peril), and a seemingly endless Wong Kar-wai spotlight (if you haven’t attempted to impress a date by taking them to see In the Mood for Love, is your Letterboxd worth the space its taking up on your phone?). Prince Charles cinema, the stalwart embodiment of independent cinema since 1962, is sadly London’s next cultural landmark to be under threat from landlords.
The cinema, in operation as London’s hub of cult and hard-to-find film since 1969, has launched a statement on the petitions website 38degrees.org.uk stating that the Criterion Capital-owned Zedwell LSQ is demanding a ‘break clause’ in the building’s lease. With the current one ending in September and under negotiation, the statement says this means the operators would be facing six months’ notice to leave should Zedwell decide to redevelop the site. The Prince Charles is just the latest in a run of cinemas at risk of closing in the wake of Covid-19.
Leaving the description of Prince Charles at ‘cinema’ would be a huge disservice. Receiving no public funding, it is truly independent, in both its running and its programming. Over the years it’s become a mecca for film fanatics, an important cultural institution in its dedication to everything cinematically incredible, rare and cult. The programming is as diverse geographically as it is in terms of genre; on any one day, you could see Kobayashi’s 1960s samurai film Harakiri, the director’s cut of Apocalypse Now, or Ralph Fiennes’s recent foray into the papacy in Conclave.
Go regularly to the £1 member screenings and you’ll start to become acquainted with your fellow lifetime members (a very good-value and worthwhile method of supporting the cinema). It’s a place of community, a hub of employment, and a distinctively scruffy gem in the heart of central London; Paul Thomas Anderson, Quentin Tarantino and John Waters are all directors who have acknowledged as much. It’s an institution run with generosity and founded on sharing a love of film with its audience. As an 18-year-old on art foundation looking for a cinema interior to do a photography project in, I reached out to every independent in London that I could find an email address for. The Prince Charles not only replied, they let me loose for an hour in screen two with my university rental camera.
The Prince Charles is more than the films it shows: it’s a community of enthusiasts: it’s, in my opinion, the best cinema popcorn in London; it’s the awkwardly low section of seats three-quarters of the way back (never book rows N–K). It’s probably many more things to my fellow solo cinema-goer in seat O16 on a Sunday afternoon watching Altman’s Nashville. But that’s the thing about this place: you never feel like you’re at the movies alone. What it is for sure is a key component in the ecosystem of independent cinema. To lose it would be dreadful.
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