With more than 1,600 screens, people share how local-run venues are taking them on a film-worthy adventure
Thirty years ago, the battle to save a cinema would take Jan Dunn and her community on an adventure worthy of a film itself.
When she heard that the Apollo, the last cinema in the area, was closing, she got together with a group of women who rescued it from demolition, and so was born the Plaza community cinema, run by volunteers and a handful of employees.
Local people refer to the Plaza as a “landmark” in Crosby, Merseyside, and speak with pride of the venue.
“When I started, I was 42; now I am 72,” says Jan, the cinema’s remaining founder and chair of trustees. “We were just a group of housewives and knew nothing about cinema, but we learned and we were determined.”
