January 2020 was the 5th anniversary of the opening of Kino Rye – the first cinema in this historic medieval town for nearly 40 years and very much a local initiative – and you can now see a film about its construction using the link in the final paragraph below.
The much loved Victorian school buildings, most recently Rye Library, were threatened with housing development, but thanks to Fletcher Centre Properties and Kino Digital, it is now a thriving two screen, 150 seat cinema – attended by locals and visitors over a quarter of a million times.
Fletcher Centre Property (FCP) funded their portion of the works (nearly £1m) with help from East Sussex County Council (ESCC) via its Economic Development Fund, as well as support from Rye residents and a local charitable trust. ESCC provided a grant of £100,000 and also a loan of £100,000 – the final instalment of the loan will be paid in March this year.
Since the opening in January 2015, Kino Rye has sold more than 280,000 tickets and shown over 1,000 different films as well as live screenings of major theatrical, operatic and sporting events from across the world – making these events accessible to East Sussex residents and saving the cost (and carbon) required to go to see them in person.
FCP and Kino would like to thank everyone for their involvement in planning, designing, building, fitting-out and running this wonderful venue – described by many locals as the “heart of Rye”.
If you’ve been to the Kino Rye in the last week or so you may have seen a 4 minute film about the construction of the cinema – if you haven’t – here’s a link to it, https://vimeo.com/385040853.
Image Credits: Fletcher Centre Property .