CELEBRATIONS honouring a cinema owner's five-year crusade to keep the city's only independent movie theatre standing will take place tonight.

Becky Hallsmith has been at the helm of East Oxford's Ultimate Picture Palace for the past five years after buying it on this day in 2011.

Her friends, family, colleagues and nearby traders are set to gather today to enjoy festivities marking her years spent transforming the Jeune Street venue.

Ms Hallsmith, of East Oxford, said: "I can't believe how quickly it has gone. It's been a lot of fun and very rewarding. I think the building has a soul – there is something about it. I feel love for it."

The cinema owner said she set about restoring the then "ramshackle" movie theatre to its former glory after a "spur of the moment" decision to buy it.

Her makeover, which began with sprucing up the facade, included installing 100 new seats costing £30,000, which was made possible after an online fundraising drive supported by about 240 people.

She also removed damp, as well as put in a new ventilation system, sound system, movie screen and digital projector at the Grade II listed building.

Ms Hallsmith completed her three-year campaign to make the £100,000-worth of renovations to the 105-seater cinema in 2014.

She said the number of movie lovers popping into the cinema has also rocketed from 22,000 in 2011 to 34,000 last year.

But she credits her supportive staff and volunteers who have been by her side throughout the five years of "hard work".

Ms Hallsmith added: "I'm very proud of what the team has done. I do feel we have achieved something. It has been wonderful to feel that there is a community of us working in the cinema. I would not have been able to do it without them."

Marketing and events manager Clare Stimpson, who also volunteered at the cinema from 2013, said the building looked "run down" before Ms Hallsmith stepped in.

The 30-year-old added: "There's just been a complete makeover and it's all down to Becky's hard work and dedication. It's been challenging but completely worthwhile.

"We are the last independent cinema and I think it's vital that people have access to something like the Ultimate Picture Palace. It's a beautiful building and it's something that is really worth preserving."

The cinema first opened as the Oxford Picture Palace on February 24, 1911, closing six years later when its manager was called up for national service.

It operated as a furniture warehouse, reopened in 1976 as the Penultimate Picture Palace, closed again in 1994, before reopening as a free cinema by the Oxford Freedom Network.

The cinema reopened in 1997 as the Ultimate Picture Palace before Ms Hallsmith bought it years later.