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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with DAN CARRIER
Published: 3 December 2009

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I HEAR the glorious old cinema at the University of Westminster in Regent Street is the subject of a major fundraising campaign to restore it to former glories.
I’ve been to a couple of talks there and was much amused by the sight of the old cinema organ still in situ. The cinema was the scene of one of the first screenings in the UK.
French inventor Louis Lumière created the cinematograph and he used it to film staff leaving his factory in Montplaisir, France. The footage was shown at the Regent Street screen in 1895. University vice chancellor Professor Geoffrey Petts said: “We recently launched a three-year plan to develop our buildings and spaces and the plan includes a £5m fundraising campaign to revive the cinema as both a sorely needed modern lecture theatre, and a working cinema with international connections.
“The Victorians who watched the early Lumière films did not only witness a new form of entertainment. For many it would be their first glimpse of their French neighbours, or Continental architecture.
“So it is fitting that in the same building we now teach social sciences, politics, and languages. Just as the Lumière brothers did more than a century ago, we are opening doors and connecting cultures.”
The project will see the front entrance of the university also renovated.

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