Who I am
I’m just a boy standing in front of a cinema, asking it to hire me.
I’m a cinema professional with a lot of years experience working with cinemas, mixed arts venues, theatres, charities, galleries, pop ups and film collectives to find their audiences.
I’ve worked at the Independent Cinema Office in the UK for the last seven years. That’s given me a panorama of what works in cinemas. I also worked at Curzon Cinemas, leading on memberships and CRM. That helped me think practically about what kinds of changes are need to gain and keep audiences.
I’ve lectured internationally – from Bologna to Kyiv – on cinema subjects for organisations like the British Council, Creative Europe and Europa Cinemas.
I’ve worked for indie distributors, set up my own pop up cinema and run a poorly-attended university film society.
The two reasons I care about cinema are films (what people show) and people (who comes to see them). Cinema is the most open art form and almost everyone has a connection to it. My hope in my work is to live up to that promise, so people can see and reimagine their lives and the world from what they see on screen.
My long-term ambition is to start my own cinema in Waltham Forest, London so I can put all I’ve learned into practice. In the meantime, it’s an honour to help other people in their mission.