On the Town: The four men who usually stay behind the scenes at the Savoy Cinema hosted a gala 75th anniversary party in Dublin this week.
The directors of the Dublin Cinema Group, which owns the Savoy Cinema, are Kevin Anderson and his half-brother, Leo Ward, with their respective sons, Paul Anderson and Paul Ward.
The two senior men began their business partnership when they set up a film distribution company, Abbey Films, in the 1940s. In the next few years, they bought up all the major cinemas around the country as they came on the market.
"Television came in in the late 1940s and early 1950s . . . We bought the cinemas - they were usually 1,000-seaters and we reduced them to 200- and 300-seaters," recalled Leo Ward. "At the moment, we have 110 screens around the country."
Together, the Ward and Anderson families celebrated "Dubin's premiere cinematograph theatre", which was recently refurbished and modernised, with a special gala screening of Mr & Mrs Smith at a black-tie affair with friends and colleagues.
"For a long time, cinema was the Cinderella of the arts, often perceived as a source of idleness by the so-called intellectuals," said Paul Ward before the film. "Tensions created by censorship did not dilute the interest in cinema. It has continued to thrive in Ireland and it has now thrown off its Cinderella shackles, having achieved respectability."
The screening of Mr & Mrs Smith was followed by supper in the Pillar Room on Parnell Square.
"It was a good comedy," said artist Ries Hoek about the film, which stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Others who attended the late-night supper were artist Bernadette Madden, who currently has a solo show at Schwarzheide in Germany; Marie Rooney, of the Gate Theatre; former film censor Sheamus Smith; Andrew and Irene Donnelly, from Navan, Co Kildare; and architect Jim Toomey and his wife, Colleen Toomey.