Moviola > About us

About us...

Moviola has been showing films in a rural setting since 2001.   The first three years of our work might be regarded as a ‘pilot’ period with the organisation finally being incorporated as ‘Dorset Film Touring’ on 24^th February 2004 with the Company Number 5053960.    ‘Dorset Film Touring’ was registered as United Kingdom Charity 1107649 on 17^th January 2005.

In summer 2009, the Company and Charity officially adopted the name ‘Moviola’ in order to reflect the growth in the UK-wide work and reputation of the organisation.

The Company and Charity share the same formal Objects:

“promoting, maintaining, improving and advancing education within the community at large and particularly in the rural areas of the United Kingdom by the promotion and performance of cinematography and films of all genres and including the provision of consultancy services in the performance of film to other individuals and organisations in the United Kingdom”.

The organisation’s Registered Office is

Spring Cottage, Queen Street, Yetminster, Sherborne, Dorset, DT9 6LL

Telephone:  01935 (00441935) 872607      Email:    info@moviola.org

If you would like to find out more about Moviola’s organisation, please click on any of the Links below:

Board

Vision and Aims

Equal Opportunities Policy

Funding Support

How we work and what we stand for 

Moviola is one of the largest rural cinema operations in the United Kingdom.  We bring to the task nearly ten years of experience, built the best way - the hard way - out of doing the job.  We have had failures and misdirections but, mindful always that we have to cover our costs, that we are reliant (just like the commercial cinema) on a supply of popular films, and that we must give the public a service that DELIGHTS them, we have been successful in establishing a community business (a ‘Charity’) that continues to grow.  We have never had the luxury of public funding to bale us out and whenever we have been tempted to experiment a bit too far, we have been reminded that it is the public and not our own interest or whim that should govern what we do.

Moviola operates a unique Partnership model which shapes and influences our day to day operation.   In each of our rural communities, (contacts in well over 150, activity in autumn 2009 in 83) we have a Partner Group which chooses films & dates, arranges the venue, organises local publicity and sells tickets.  The Partners also manage the show – which means they tell us the sort of show they want:  Do they want short films?  How long an interval?   What time should the show start?  The central professional management team of Moviola books films, maintains links with film distributors, provides marketing materials and tickets and, most importantly, all the equipment and the Presenter for the show.

Moviola is popular and has become an integral part of the life of each community it visits.   While there is always room to improve and while we have to work with a variety of halls of different sizes, ages and acoustics, we are more often complimented than criticised.   People see Moviola as good value and fun and they come back again and again.    The spread of the service has been ‘viral’ – by word of mouth from one village to the next.  We have never advertised our services and we do not go anywhere to which we have not been invited.

The exponential growth in Moviola since 2001 illustrates the success of the model.  (Operating year is from April to March.)

This success is due to the hard work of Partners and core staff but is also down to the high standards of technical presentation and the showmanship we try to build in to every show.  We play appropriate music before the start of the show.  Most features are accompanied by a programme of short films and trailers to allow an interval where audience interaction (and also all-important refreshment sales) can take place.  We do not have breakdowns.  The picture is big and clear and perfectly positioned on-screen.  The sound is as good as we can make it and ‘not too loud’.

We do not believe in equipping individual halls with kit which may languish most of the time unused and be out of date within a few years.  We are committed to the touring model and so our venues share equipment.  This allows us to update to the latest projectors and digital delivery – most recently adopting BluRay high definition disks wherever possible.  We use the largest screen that will fit into the hall.  Our fully trained Presenters (not ‘projectionists’) do not just project the film perfectly; they also introduce the evening and are on hand for feed back from the audience, most particularly at the end of the show when they say goodnight to everyone.

We realise that village halls and other venues vary in standards of comfort.  We cannot of course compete with the luxury of the newest multiplexes.  Where we score is on the quality of presentation and welcome, on the added value of the supporting programme, and on the reasonably priced and good quality refreshments with, in many venues, a licensed bar.   Customers can buy their tickets in advance and regard our ticket price as a bargain compared to having to make a long journey to a highly priced urban cinema.   The ‘green’ aspect of enjoying films locally is also not lost on our audiences, nor the fact that our customers are enthusiastic, attentive and appreciative – not for us films spoilt by mobile phones and noisy behaviour.

Moviola shows are a real community activity.   Although our main interest is in making films accessible for all-ages in the countryside, we are also pleased by the contribution the scheme is making to rural regeneration: a monthly opportunity for the whole community to come together.  There is evidence of economic benefit beyond the hall, from the fact that the village pub is fuller on show nights right through to the increased throughput in Post Office and village shop by people coming in to buy tickets.  The cinema ‘spend’ stays in the village rather than leaching out to the big towns.  Most directly Partners retain 25% of ticket sales for their own community use – and in the 2008-9 trading year, Moviola in this way returned nearly £60,000 to Partner communities.   It is not surprising that Moviola is being used as an exemplar of social enterprise by R.I.S.E in the south west of England.

Moviola aims for self-sufficiency and sustainability.  We agree a common ticket price with Partners (currently £5) and do not offer any concessions.  This is because ticket income is the predominant source of our funding.  In the financial year 2008-9, less than 5% of our funding came from grants.   We are aware that public funding will be under severe pressure for many years to come and any trading model which is not reliant upon our own efforts is unlikely to succeed.  (See also the section on Funding)

Two other aspects of Moviola’s work apply to the whole of the UK as well as to our specific operating area:    Special Events and Consultancy/Advice.   We provide high quality projection services for agencies who wish to include a film in their programme but do not specialise in screen work.   Click here to find out more.

We are aware that there are many people elsewhere in the UK who would like better access to cinema.   We restrict ourselves to running regular shows only in our five ‘home’ counties of Dorset, Devon, Hampshire, Somerset and Wiltshire.  For places outside our area, we freely provide advice about setting up a cinema, searching for films and (when we can) giving enquirers links to groups active in a particular area.   More directly we offer an ‘Associate’ status by which individual halls or groups can share our programming expertise and book their films through us.  Click here to find out more.

In summary: We love films.  We love showing films and creating the proper environment in which to appreciate a film: the big screen displaying all the glorious detail with which films are endowed and of course the shared audience experience.  We want to get people out of their houses to meet together.

We are evangelists for community cinema.   Being able - despite your age, infirmity, social background, economic status – to walk to your nearby hall to enjoy a quality cinema experience is something we want to happen all over the UK countryside.

Moviola Ltd gratefully acknowledges the support of its funders. 

                        Last modified: 21-Aug-2009

Send mail to info@moviola.org to comment on the website or find out more about Moviola.