No6 Cinema
No6 Cinema. No6 Cinema is housed in one of the most beautiful and unique buildings in England. The auditorium which is set within a Georgian boathouse in Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard was renovated with Millennium Lottery Funding in 2000. After many years of neglect following war time bomb damage, part of its modernisation included a 250 seater auditorium which was just showing a naval recruitment film to visitors called ‘Command Approved’. Deemed a tragic waste of this incredible facility and the fact there was no independent cinema in Portsmouth, a group of film aficionados persuaded the Historic Dockyard to fund an initiative to run it as a full time cinema.
Sadly the charity lost too much money and decided to close it down. Faced with the devastating news that Portsmouth was just about to lose its only indie cinema a group of enthusiastic volunteers asked the dockyard if they could try and keep it running with volunteers and a pared down schedule of three nights a week ten months of the year.
The rest as they say is history, No6 is entering its twelfth year of operations in 2023. Our byline is ‘Arthouse to Hollywood’ which encompasses the range of our programme. We love escapist films as much as the next person but we also relish screening films which look great on our enormous screen. Reputed to be the largest screen on the south coast (excluding imax) we have raked comfortable seating which means everyone has an uninterrupted view.
We have built strong partnerships with other organisations over the years including; Making Waves FF, Port Fest, University of Portsmouth, Journeys Festival International and South West silents. We love these partnerships as they help build breadth and diversity into our programme.
Boathouse 6, HM Naval Base, Portsmouth PO1 3LJ,
Inside No.6 Cinema
Stickers from No.6 Cinema
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Watershed is the Lead Film Hub Organisation for Film Hub South West, part of the BFI Film Audience Network.
Watershed is a Registered Charity No. 284188 and a Social Enterprise
Watershed, 1 Canons Road, Harbourside, Bristol, BS1 5TX
Film Hub South West &
BFI NETWORK South West
are part of the BFI Film Audience Network, supported by The National Lottery.
