Smokies Film Festival

MediCinema are so proud to have the support of Phillip Kempson and the Smokies Film Festival! All submissions should be proud of the work produced and we are so glad to be discussing MediCinema with those who understand the power cinema and film have on your mental wellbeing. 

MediCinema is a charity which improves the wellbeing and quality of life of NHS patients and their families through the power of the shared cinema experience and the magic of film. We build and run cinemas in hospitals equipped with space for beds, wheelchairs, and medical equipment. Our services help to improve emotional, mental, and physical health, reducing feelings of isolation, anxiety, and stress, and increasing patient resilience.

Through the latest and best the film industry has to offer, MediCinema engages and uplifts like no other. Utilising the power of cinema to enable patients, many of whom will be experiencing complex and long term hospital stays, to experience some sense of normality and reduce both the isolation and marginalisation they may be feeling.

This was certainly the case for little Jake.

Last year, Jake was diagnosed with Leukaemia. We spoke to his Dad, Craig, about the ways in which a trip to the RVI MediCinema to see Peter Rabbit 2 came at the perfect time for their whole family. "“My little boy, Jake, was three when we came to the MediCinema. We had just been hit with the news that he had Leukaemia. It was a truly awful time for our family. We were faced with a rollercoaster of emotions and what felt like endless days in hospital." 

Then Jake and his family found MediCinema. 

"While MediCinema provided relief and normality for us, for Jake it was an adventure. He ’ s lived a third of his life with Covid and lockdown, so it was his first ever trip to the cinema. . After three very long weeks in hospital, he got to do something special he had never done before – something that wasn’t hospital related. He wasn’t getting jabbed or getting his temperature taken for the 4000th time. He was escaping into a different world."

That is the impact of your donation. You give brave children, like Jake, the chance to experience life and not be overwhelmed by anxiety and pain.