Your
Belmont
Memories

"I've been to many crowded, joyous screenings, but the ones closest to my heart are the ones that made me cry. Walking into Stations of the Cross with no idea what to expect and needing half an hour after the film ended before I could walk downstairs and face the world.

Being the only person in an early-morning screening of 120 BPM and just losing it. Seeing the first screening of First Cow on the first day after lockdown and just crying with relief that I was back in the cinema. The Belmont's always been the place in the world where I feel most at home with my emotions (particularly if I'm in screen 3, seat C1, my absolute favourite), and where I feel most myself. And I have cried at an awful lot of films."

"I was working abroad but was back in Aberdeen for a holiday - staying at Skene Apartments because my house was rented out. Sunset Song was playing at The Belmont and, as the ultimate work free indulgence, my wife and decided to go to a weekday afternoon screening.

I was so looking forward to this, I had recently reread the Sunset Song trilogy while abroad (and for the first time since being force fed it while at school in Stonehaven). It had made be so homesick with the brilliant evocation of the Mearns countryside and the cheek by jowl rural existence. The short walk from Skene Apartments was a refresher - we were pelted with freezing cold needles of rain that we hadn’t properly dressed for and so arrived at the cinema cold and wet. We hunkered down in front of the screen for a warming tale of rural idyll , but I’d misremembered. What a shocking, brutal tale of lost opportunity, broken dreams and domestic violence.

I was shaken and shocked and staggered out at the end ready to discuss what we’d seen. I turned to my wife , who’d grown up on a farm, to hear what she’d made of it. She said she couldn’t believe what she’d seen. “That bit where the kids walk home from school through the field of ripening barley! No farmers’ kids would do that’. And that was it. I realised then that film touches us all in different ways!"

"My first trip to the Belmont was to see Best In Show, I snuck out of a tour of RGU with some friends and saw one of the funniest films.

A few years later I returned to Aberdeen with cinema experience and CV in hand with the Belmont in my sights. I got the job, tricket wasnae the word.

It was a dream come true. We showed great films, had great regulars and it was the tightest crew I've ever worked with.

After a few months of asking, Nelly agreed to train me in 35mm projection and a childhood dream was realised.

I worked at the Belmont twice, 2 and a half years each time and miss it dearly.

So many highlights: the quiz, kids club, dressing up for The Dark Knight, ice creams sitting on the curb, hanging in the kitchen, BTTF Trilogy, King Creosote, staff screening of Moon, marshmallow shifts, getting to watch Caddyshack on my birthday, Drummonds on a thursday after some hard projection graft.

I'm hopeful for the Belmont's future as it's vital for the city to have somewhere showing reel cinema."

"One of my most favourite memories is visiting Belmont during their Charlie Chaplin week, which celebrated the films of the legendary actor and director, Charlie Chaplin. I attended a screening of a documentary which told the life story, achievements, and struggles of this great artist.

The film spoke to and moved me in a way in which I will not forget. I even shed a few tears. I am thankful to Belmont for always having unique screenings such as this, which cannot be found in large cinemas. Thank you, Belmont!"