IPSWICH: Cinema buffs, prepare to celebrate – the projector will soon be rolling again at a closed film theatre in the town.

Films are set to return to the Corn Exchange next month after previous operator Hollywood Cinemas pulled out last October.

It will reopen on May 20 showing the BAFTA-winning and Oscar-nominated A Single Man in the main screen.

The second screen will also re-open with the French language film Seraphine.

The theatre will initially be open three days a week, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday – although The Ipswich Film Theatre Trust, which is taking on its management, hopes to expand that to four days and to start Saturday matinees.

It also wants to create a community cinema showing films which are not screened elsewhere.

The film theatre is to be staffed by trained volunteers and it hopes to make links with Suffolk New College and UCS to programme films that will fit into their courses.

Other films lined up in the coming weeks include Stephen Poliakoff’s acclaimed Glorious 39, starring Romola Garai, Bill Nighy, Julie Christie and David Tennant.

It will also show The Last Station with James McAvoy, Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer, and Michael Moore’s controversial Capitalism: A Love Story.

The trust is hoping to book Oil City Confidential in the near future, which may be followed by a question and answer session with members of Essex-based rock veterans Dr Feelgood, hosted by BBC Radio Suffolk’s Stephen Foster.

Ipswich Film Theatre Trust spokesman Andrew Clarke said: “This is just the beginning. More delights will be added to the programme as we go.

“But the cinema will not flourish without the support of film-lovers. It is your cinema. If you don’t use it, then it will go for good. This really will be the last picture show, certainly as far as independent cinema goes.”

n Are you looking forward to the return of the Ipswich Film Theatre? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN.