The silver screen returned to the heart of Highland Perthshire when the new Birks of Aberfeldy Cinema had its official opening on Friday.
It is more than 30 years since the attractive art-deco building showed its last film and it has taken a seven-year fundraising campaign and £1.8 million to resurrect it.
Now it is proudly preparing to welcome the community through its doors once again.
The state of the art attraction sold its first tickets to long-term supporter John Swinney, MSP for Perthshire North, who secured places for himself, wife Elizabeth Quigley and son Matthew at a forthcoming showing of Iron Man 3.
Mr Swinney said: “This day has been long awaited and really drives home what community teamwork can achieve.
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“I was honoured to be first in line to buy tickets for my local cinema and very proud to see the Birks Cinema restored, resplendent and fully operational once again.
“Moreover, I am excited about the role the cinema will now play in the local community as an employer, as a creative inspiration and as an asset to Aberfeldy and the Highland Perthshire area for both residents and visitors alike.”
The original 470-seat Birks Cinema closed its doors in 1982 after 43 years in existence before then being transformed into an amusement hall. That eventually closed in 2004 and the building lay dormant and deteriorating until 2009, when, three years after planning began, the Friends of the Birks Cinema purchased it.
Birks Cinema chairwoman Charlotte Flower was one of the three founding members of the Friends and has put her heart and soul into the project over the past seven years. She has been astounded by the results.
“When we bought the building in 2009 our first talk was to make the building safe, because it had deteriorated over the years and was frankly dangerous,” she said.
“By the end we were left with nothing but a weatherproof shell and it took the genius of our architect Robin Baker to take us from there to where we are today.
“Buying the building in the first place was the scariest thing because we had to consider what we would do with it if we could not get the required funding. On the day before the builders began, I came into the cinema to imagine how it would look.
“I’d studied the plans and I could picture perfectly where everything would be and I walked through the shell as if was completed, from reception through to the screen to take my “seat” in the auditorium. It was wonderful even then, but the reality is far greater than I could ever have imagined.”
Local children will be invited to test screenings during the coming week before competition winners enjoy a Golden Ticket event on Friday, ahead of next Saturday’s general opening.