Celebrating Scotland’s Wee Cinema

For many living in remote parts of Scotland it was their first experience of cinema. The operators of the Highland and Islands Film Guild, affectionately known as the "Men of the Wee Cinema" took the Big Screen to small communities up and down remote areas of Scotland. The Film Guild, which was set up after World War Two, gave many Scots their first experience of seeing the world depicted on the screen from their own communities. Now to mark the end of the three-year University of Glasgow-led project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), a reunion of the Film Guild operators, their friends and families is being held in Inverness today (Wednesday 7 November 2018). The event will share the findings of The Major Minor Cinema: Highlands and Islands Film Guild 1946-71 project which has collected people's memories of the operators' important and diverse work. The reunion will also be an opportunity to see an original Film Guild Trojan van used by the operator, Vic Gall, to cover the Fort William area. The event will also see the launch of a new book from the project called Reel to Rattling Reel: Stories and Poems about Memories of Cinema-Going which is about memories of going to the cinema.