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Cinemas and exhibitors

Cinemas and exhibitors: who works there and what each of them does

Exhibition is the trade word for cinemas, the place where the audience finally meets the film. Roughly 850 sites and well over 4,000 screens in the UK, from the big chains to a few hundred independents, town cinemas and volunteer-run community screens.

A cinema does not buy a film. It shows it and keeps a negotiated share of the ticket money, and the rest goes back to the distributor as film rental, which is why front of house is also asked to sell the ice cream and why a film that opens badly can lose half its screens by the following Thursday. Unlike a festival, a cinema is open every day, employs people all year and hires continuously. MFJF's course calls it the paid door into this part of the industry, and most people in exhibition came through it.

  1. Head of programming, or booker

  2. General manager

  3. Duty manager

  4. Marketing and audiences

  5. Events, community and education

  6. Technical and projection lead

  7. Front of house or programming assistantEntry-level job

Drawn from MFJF's own Foundations courses Film Festival and Cinema Assistant (the cinemas half of the map, the money and who is in the office, and a week in a cinema; plus the wider map and the path upwards) and Distribution Office Assistant (how a UK distributor works, from the market to the screen: theatrical sales, film rental and delivery), together with MFJF's own map Sales, distribution, marketing and exhibition. The words are My First Job In Film's. © My First Job In Film 2026.

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Picked for Film Festival and Cinema Assistant. Signed in, they follow your stage and the roles your answers point to. See your whole MFJF journey, step by step →

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  10. Industry EssentialsThe books, industry bodies, websites and blogs worth knowing, department by department.
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  12. MFJF Academy workshopsLive sessions with people who do the job, and the monthly career clinic.
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