Review: 2024 at QFT

So what makes this a five-star year at QFT? Well, how about just how many of you came to QFT this year? We’ve had just shy of 130,000 admissions in 2024, making it our best year ever!  

We haven’t seen admissions close to this since 2019. No matter how many news articles tell you cinema’s dead, it’s alive and kicking in Belfast. We’re so happy that you’re taking a chance on brilliant cinema here. 

Speaking of brilliant cinema...

This year at QFT we showed 444 different films and short film programmes, taken part in 10 different festivals and hosted over 40 Q&As with guests like Mary Robinson, Kneecap's DJ Próvaí, Bríd Brennan, Pat Murphy, Brendan Byrne, Amy Liptrot, Mark Cousins – we could go on and on.  

Our audiences loved local stories – as our bestseller list reveals - but you also watched films from 67 different countries, in 64 different languages. 

Our monthly discussion group After the Credits discussed 48 films. If you’d love to meet other people who love the cinema, and get to chat about great films, joining the group is a perfect new year’s resolution. It’s open to audience members who are part of any of our membership schemes. 

Our memberships continue to grow. We’re particularly proud of how many LUMI members we have now – with over 2,000 new members this year. It reflects just how engaged with the arts and the world the young people here are. Including, of course, our LUMI Programmers who’ve programmed 32 events over the year. They’ve paired up with festivals and other cinemas to bring unique programming to QFT from reevaluating box office flops like Speed Racer to classic arthouse like Black Girl. Keep an eye out next year for their selection as part of NI Science Festival.

We're looking forward to even more great films in 2025. Hope to see you there.