Seeing Further

Writing on Esther Kinsky’s book, Seeing Further (2024), Saffron Maeve describes the cinema as ‘both a tactile and poetic site…one which cannot fully exist without an accumulation of gazes.’ Dependent on collective presence, cinema and the programming that shapes it have long been a space for political imagination and community-making, from Third Cinema and the Palestinian Film Unit to London-based initiatives like Four Corners, the Workers Film Association and the Black Audio Film Collective. In watching together, cinema can extend past the time-based duration of the moving image to reimagine the relationships we have to others and the world outside it.

Yet, as films are increasingly streamed individually online, sometimes even at the same time as their theatrical release, the collective experience of cinema going has become a choice. When we could just as well screen a film on a personal device, what does it mean to see films together?

This newsletter, named after Kinsky’s book, aims to highlight self-organised film in London, showcasing efforts reclaiming cinema as a social, solidarity-driven practice. We take ‘self-organised’ to mean efforts that emphasise grassroots methods and creative autonomy, even if such initiatives may sometimes collaborate with institutions to realise their aims.