Queen's FilmTheatre

Queen's Film Theatre opened on 16 October 1968 with a screening of Viva Maria, the project of Michael Emmerson, who ran the Belfast Film Festival and persuaded Queen's University to convert a lecture theatre in University Square Mews into a 250-seat cinema. It remains part of the university, run as a registered charity alongside partnerships with Northern Ireland Screen and the BFI. The building was refurbished in 1986 and again in 2003 and 2004, and now holds two screens, seating 204 and 91. Programming runs to art-house, world and independent cinema rather than mainstream releases, continuing the brief Emmerson set out when the cinema first opened. It sits beside the Brian Friel Theatre in the same University Square building, just off Botanic Avenue.