Indulge me. To the film/cinema programmer, context is (very nearly, rightly or wrongly) everything. All manner of films, good or bad, can be justified by context – in our minds at least. As an example, context would allow you to screen Fear and Desire as part of a Stanley Kubrick retrospective!

But what do you do if you’re a slave to context but there are great films you want to play which have a distinct lack of a handy context in which to play them. It’s not part of a thematic grouping of films; or has recently enjoyed a 4K restoration and rerelease; or is directed by the subject of your retrospective...

Why, you create the context – a programming ‘strand’ whereby the only context is the film is great, it’s available to play and we’ve an available cinema to play it in!

This is going to be fun!