This is a past event
Since opening its doors in 1968 QFT has occupied a very special place in Belfast’s cultural landscape. Marking the culmination of a year-long AHRC funded research project undertaken by film scholar Dr Sam Manning, QFT presents a fascinating insight into its extraordinary fifty-year history.
By using a range of storytelling techniques and resources including first-hand testimony from cinemagoers, staff, and filmmakers, photography and archival material, Manning delves into the cinema’s unique story. The exhibition shows how QFT has repeatedly risen to social, cultural and political challenges such as the Troubles, declining cinema audiences, the rise of the multiplexes and changing cinema technology to continue to be Northern Ireland’s leading cultural cinema.
The exhibition raises the following questions: How have audiences changed in the past fifty years, and which films have they enjoyed? How has the building altered, including the relocation of the cinema’s entrance from a rear alleyway to its current site? How important has QFT been to the social and cultural life of Belfast?
The QFT50 exhibition was made possible with the generous support of the Heritage Lottery Fund.
FRI 5 – WED 31 OCT
VENUE: QFT
Join filmmaker Brian Henry Martin on an alphabetical odyssey, a special illustrated talk to celebrate the golden age of the cinema.
In October 1968, Queen’s Film Theatre opened in a converted lecture hall on the university campus with a policy of ‘showing the best international films past and present’. Fifty years later, it remains a much-loved venue for cinema-goers in Belfast and beyond.
To celebrate one year of SCREEN/PRINT and the 50th anniversary of QFT, the Naughton Gallery presents a one of a kind film poster exhibition.