The Social Cinema Company launch event

Following six years of providing film screenings to marginalised communities such as the homeless, those in care and ex-offenders, in December 2015 the social enterprise Open Cinema launched a new digital platform for community cinema.

Open Cinema International Ltd enables any community, work or leisure venue to host licensed film screenings, either on a free view or paid / ticketed basis. 

Venues may select from a growing library of films (currently over 5,000), create marketing materials to promote the event through community, press or social media channels, and a secure transaction system to enable tickets to be purchased from any digital device. 

Having now secured 27 venues and with many more on the way, Open Cinema will host the first screening using the new platform at the Impact Hub Westminster on Monday 4^th April at 6pm. 

Open Cinema – New Digital Platform for Community Cinema - Launch Event 4th April 2016 – Impact Hub Westminster, Central London

The documentary ‘Ping Pong’ tells the tale of 8 players competing in the World Over-80’s Table Tennis Championships in Inner Mongolia. The film’s producer will be there for a Q&A, and senior players from the Veterans English Table Tennis Society will participate in an exhibition match, with short games open to all-comers! Tickets for the launch event are £6 and can be purchased here. 

Background Information on Open Cinema 

Open Cinema was founded in 2009 by its current CEO Christoph Warrack FRSA to enable homelessness centres to host their own participatory screening events. Working in support and community centres of all kinds, it has since launched 40 community cinemas across the UK and Ireland, hosted over 1,000 screenings, and almost 200 special guest Q&As, including 17 Academy Award-winning or nominated filmmakers. 

The Foundation also offers participatory filmmaking programmes which train participants in life and media skills. 54 films have now been made through this programme, and resulting films presented on Channel 4, at Sheffield Doc/Fest, the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and at BAFTA. 

In January 2015, Open Cinema Foundation spun out a for-profit digital company, Open Cinema International, to build and operate a digital platform enabling any community to have a cinema, at lower cost than the services model operated by the Foundation. The company progressed through the Dotforge accelerator, and subsequently attracted investment from the Key Fund and Creative England. The platform launched on 1 December 2015 and now has 27 venues registered.

In March 2016 Open Cinema logged its 77^th – 81^st country enquiries, from Finland, Bangladesh, Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire and Serbia. 

Available for interviews:

Christoph Warrack, CEO and founder – Christoph@opencinema.co / Skype: @ChristophOC /07977 513 827

Ben Hirsch, marketing director – ben@opencinema.co / Skype: @benhirsch1 /07968 562 660 

Previous Media and other coverage:

www.opencinema.net./news

www.opencinema.net/press