Mutate and Re-Mix

A Small Cinema” has grown beyond our control and, like all great 21st century ideas it has gone VIRAL! We really hoped this day would come (but we hadn’t realised that it would be quite so soon!).

Tonight a small cinema opens in Oldham, operating out of an empty shop and showing a run of feature films.  The project, has been set up by 17 year old organisor Sophie Barrott and started from a Facebook group calling for a “Summer Cinema Project for Oldham“. A fair few months ago Sophie got in touch with Sam and asked for advice regarding how to make a series of cinema screening events work for her community in Oldham.

We were really delighted to help – setting up cinema screenings through your own initiative is exactly what “A Small Cinema” is all about & we really admire and support Sophie’s energy and initiative. 6 weeks ago she emailed us to say that she had found funding and that Oldham was going to have its own Small Cinema Club.

Aside from the design, it looks like Sophie’s event itself has managed to find its own approach, with a great selection of feature films, and gothic stylings for the actual venue.  We weren’t anticipating the name to be used exactly as it was – it feels strange seeing our brand attached to someone else’s work – but the phrase by its generic nature, wants to be passed around. So, we decided to roll with it, encourage the remixing and mutation in this case, and see where it went.

If our project – “A Small Cinema” – is about anything, it is about community, and Oldham’s Summer Cinema Project has raised some important questions about how we are going to share our stuff in the future, and what kinds of tools we need to make available to facilitate that sharing. We really hope that, as Oldham’s Summer Cinema Club develops, it can find it’s own voice, and develop its own community.To see the full programme of events for Oldham, check out sophie’s blog – http://smallcinema.blog.co.uk/

Also, you can see an article about the event on the BBC website.