Billericay Community Cinema scoops National Awards!

Billericay Community Cinema has scooped two national awards and a commendation at the 2025 Film Society of the Year Awards, hosted by Cinema for All in Sheffield on Saturday 20th September. 

These awards are widely regarded as the “Oscars” of the community cinema world, judged by people who truly understand what it takes to run and maintain volunteer-led, not-for-profit screenings. 

Billericay Community Cinema received: 

• 2025 Community Award – recognising outstanding community connection and involvement over the past year.

• Outstanding Contribution by an Individual Award – presented jointly to BCC Chairman Adam Adshead and Elizabeth Costello, founder of Leigh Film Society.

• Commendation – the MPLC Legacy Award for Community Building – shortlisted alongside three of the UK’s most established community cinemas: Leigh Film Society (that’s Leigh in Wigan, not Leigh-on-Sea, Chorley Empire Community Cinema, and Manchester Salford Film Society.

Jo and Adam travelled to Sheffield on Saturday morning, with the evening’s ceremony also including film critic Danny Leigh’s big reveal of the Top 10 films (as voted on by community cinemas and film societies), film critic and host for the evening Rhianna Dhillon interviewing award winning film maker Mark Cousins, and the CEO of Cinema for All Jaq Chell taking us back in time with the story of the first film society founded 100 years ago in 1925.

It was a well attended event with groups from around the UK – winners included the Borscht Film Club (specialising in Polish films, based in Glasgow & Edinburgh), the Skye Community Cinema (Isle of Skye – who apparently took 13 hours and 20 minutes to reach Sheffield !), the Chorley Empire Community Cinema (Lancashire), Warwick Student Cinema and UFP Film Club (Bedford).

With around 1,600 community cinemas and film societies around the UK I doubt you’ll find many that operate in exactly the same way – unlike the multiplexes. Each caters to the unique make up of its community and location which means that when you get a chance to talk to other groups, you’ll always come away having learnt something new. I certainly did talking to Paul and Elizabeth Costello of the Leigh Film Society amongst others.

As each shortlist was announced photos provided by each group were projected onto the screen. It’s not too clear from this, but the 2025 Community Award featured our recent Film Thursday “Look happy and pretend you’re enjoying yourselves” photo …. Congratulations! You made it to Sheffield!

Once the names of the contenders had been announced Rhianna Dhillon gave a brief semi-cryptic summary of the winning cinema’s credentials with no doubt every nominee looking for clues as to whether they had won! For the 2025 Community Award I was doing a mental “tick box” check of everything she said (as was Jo !). “Yep, the could be us. Yep, that too… Oooh, this is sounding possible….“

And then the moment came when Rhianna opened the Golden Envelope containing the winning name. Yes, a real Golden Envelope, just like the Oscars!

Jo and I headed up to the stage to receive the award on behalf of the cinema, greeted by Jaq Chell, CEO of Cinema for All and host Rhianna Dhillon after which came the obligatory photos.The “Outstanding Contribution by an Individual Award” was an entirely different kettle of fish. 

This was entirely unexpected and so caught up in the moment was I that I’ve forgotten most of what happened. I do remember during the “semi-cryptic” introduction talk of both a North West award and a South East Award – and as the descriptions continued it started to dawn on me who they might be talking about.

To share an award with Elizabeth Costello, founder of the Leigh Film Society  (who run 4 different projects, the Film Society, an Afternoon Classic Cinema Club, the Leigh Film Factory and the Wigan and Leigh Film Festival) was an absolute honour.

I never thought anything would beat the feeling I got when Billericay Community Cinema won the Best New Film Society Award in Sheffield back in 2016. But then came Saturday night in the same month we celebrated our 10th Anniversary!

It is a huge honour for our community cinema to win the Community Award, one of 12 presented on the night, which included awards for the Best Single Event, Film Programming, and Marketing and Publicity. If we could have chosen any award – and if any award sums up what we aim to achieve – it really is the Community Award.

Congratulations to all of our incredible Volunteers who can proudly announce to the world, their friends, families (and even pet stick insects) that they are National Award Winners. 

We were the only winner representing Billericay, Basildon Borough, and the County of Essex, and the only group to take home more than one award on the night. OK, bragging over. 

As a community cinema, we’ve always set out to be “more than just a cinema“. Whilst we develop a community around film our reach extends far beyond – not only in measurable ways (such as sponsoring the Billericay Good Companions or donating profits to support other local volunteer/charity groups) but in the unseen impact. 

Two feedback quotes highlight this for me: 

“You’ve no idea what I’ve been going through, but coming on Sundays has helped in ways I never thought possible”

“These film afternoons are invaluable to those who live alone. My circle of friends has trebled in the last few screenings, and that doesn’t include all the volunteers who look after us. Lemon drizzle cake absolutely scrumptious”

Look no further to understand why we do what we do.

Photo: Cinema For All