Tony Jones

Tony Jones

Areas of Interest

Arts

Honorary Award

Honorary Doctor of Arts, 2013

Biography

Tony Jones is the most significant figure in independent film exhibition in our region. Besides pursuing a long and successful career establishing and programming art house world and independent cinema, he also became involved with the Cambridge Film Festival in 1981 and has run the festival since then as Festival Director. Tony also founded and continues to direct the Cambridge Film Trust which delivers the festival.

Tony first became involved in cinema programming in 1968 when he founded the Arts Lab, an independent venue in Birmingham. Twelve years later he became programming manager for the Arts Cinema in Market Passage, Cambridge, which he built up to become the UK's highest-grossing single-screen venue outside of London.

Alongside this, Tony co-founded City Screen Limited in 1989 with Lyn Goleby, beginning with conversion to 35mm on the Maltings Cinema in Ely and the purchase of the Phoenix Cinema in Oxford. They went on to open the Arts Picture House in St Andrews Street. City Screen has grown to become the leading independent cinema operator in the UK, owning 21 Picturehouse cinemas and providing programming and films for a further 37 venues. In December 2012, Cineworld purchased the Picturehouse chain for £47.3 million, a fitting point for Tony to retire.

Even though film has become increasingly accessible in private contexts through specialist TV channels, DVD rentals and purchase, downloads and streaming to mobiles and tablets, Tony has continued to pioneer innovation and flair in public screening. He has taken our understanding of the screening space beyond the traditional black cube of the cinema auditorium and into the street, into stately homes, onto hotel rooftops, and into rural meadows.

The Cambridge Film Festival, has recently delivered its thirty-third event, has put Cambridge firmly on the international film-festival map. Each year it attracts scores of specialist short films, features and documentaries from around the world, past as well as present, and very prominent international film personalities. It has made Tony one of the UK's best-known figures in the international film community.



Citation

"Vice Chancellor, it is my pleasure to read the citation for Tony Jones for the award of Doctor of Arts, honoris causa.

Tony Jones is the most significant figure in independent film exhibition in our region. Besides pursuing a long and successful career establishing and programming art house world and independent cinema, he also became involved with the Cambridge Film Festival in 1981 and has run the festival since then as Festival Director. Tony also founded and continues to direct the Cambridge Film Trust which delivers the festival.

Tony first became involved in cinema programming in 1968 when he founded the Arts Lab, an independent venue in Birmingham. Twelve years later he became programming manager for the Arts Cinema in Market Passage, Cambridge, which he built up to become the UK's highest-grossing single-screen venue outside of London.

Alongside this, Tony co-founded City Screen Limited in 1989 with Lyn Goleby, beginning with conversion to 35mm on the Maltings Cinema in Ely and the purchase of the Phoenix Cinema in Oxford. They went on to open the Arts Picture House in St Andrews Street. Over 16 years, by offering locally tailored programmes focused on independent, art-house and foreign-language films, City Screen has grown to become the leading independent cinema operator in the UK, owning 21 Picturehouse cinemas and providing programming and films for a further 37 venues.

Tony and the Picture House team have proved, on a scale never before achieved in the UK, that art-house cinema can attract the public, and not only survive but flourish in urban centres outside of London. Most importantly, he has shown that this can be done without recourse to revenue subsidy. If any confirmation of this were needed, it came in December last year when Cineworld purchased the Picturehouse chain for £47.3 million, a fitting point for Tony to retire.

Even though film has become increasingly accessible in private contexts through specialist TV channels, DVD rentals and purchase, downloads and streaming to mobiles and tablets, Tony has continued to pioneer innovation and flair in public screening. He has taken our understanding of the screening space beyond the traditional black cube of the cinema auditorium and into the street, into stately homes, onto hotel rooftops, and into rural meadows.

The Cambridge Film Festival, has recently delivered its thirty-third event, has put Cambridge firmly on the international film-festival map. Each year it attracts scores of specialist short films, features and documentaries from around the world, past as well as present, and very prominent international film personalities. It has made Tony one of the UK's best-known figures in the international film community.

Tony Jones has always fostered educational outreach and, in building Cambridge as a centre of independent film culture, has contributed significantly to developing an appropriate context for our own academic programmes in film studies and film and television production. We have a further connection in that Anglia Ruskin University is a partner in the Cambridgeshire Film Consortium, founded in 1999, along with the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge Film Trust, Parkside Federation and Long Road Sixth Form College.

Vice Chancellor, for his contribution to independent cinema and accessible culture in our region, it is my pleasure to present Tony Jones for the award of Doctor of Arts, honoris causa."