A YORK cinema is to host the city’s first dog-friendly screening to celebrate the release of a new film called Isle Of Dogs.

City Screen in Coney Street will launch Wes Anderson’s film with five preview screenings on Sunday and the first of these, at 11am, will be open to well-behaved dogs and their owners.

Marketing manager Dave Taylor said the cinema was following in the footsteps of other Picturehouse Cinemas around the country where dog-friendly screenings had proved to be very successful and popular.

“Frankly, we’re mostly cat-people here at City Screen but the release of Wes Anderson’s Isle Of Dogs seemed too good an opportunity to miss.”

He said customers were invited to bring well-behaved dogs to the 11am screening, and the cinema would supply plenty of water bowls both inside and outside the screen, and also supply blankets so people’s pets could sit on the seat next to them.

“Only the owners are charged for a ticket, not the dogs,” he said.

Asked whether the screening might cause any subsequent problems for customers with allergies to dogs, he said staff would naturally be doing a “deep clean” of the auditorium after the event.

“But as we’re giving out blankets to customers, we anticipate a lot of the dog hair will be removed on the blankets before the vacuuming starts.”

He added that the other four screenings taking place later in the day were designated for humans-only, and tickets were available by phoning 0871 902 5726, or by going to the box office.

He said that with a cast of mostly canine characters, Isle Of Dogs was a stop-motion animation set in a dystopian Japan 20 years in the future, in which the country’s pooches had been brutally exiled to a “trash island” after an outbreak of dog flu.

“Twelve-year-old Atari Kobayashi’s dog, Spots, is caught up in the quarantine and so the youngster embarks on a thrilling quest to save his pal, aided by the island’s four-legged prisoners, he said.

“City Screen is a big fan of Wes Anderson’s movies and has been screening an entire retrospective of his work on Monday nights at 8:45.

“The ‘We ♥ Wes’ season has been very popular and we still have ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ on Monday March 26 to complete the series.”