The Independent Cinema Office (ICO) is the UK’s national support organisation for independent exhibitors of all kinds including cinemas, film festivals and film societies. Its goal is to create a thriving, open and challenging film culture with something for everyone.

The ICO programmes a network of over 20 cinemas, festivals and mixed arts venues across the UK, aiming to bring a wider range of films to a wider range of people, so that everyone can access a shared experience of life-changing cinema in their community. As well as programming, the ICO runs training and industry conference events, distributes films, and offers bespoke consultancy services and advice and information support to the film exhibition sector.

After very careful consideration, we decided to change Stamford Arts Centre back to a monthly programme and wanted to give you some insight into why. Unlike theatre, film booking works with rather short turn-around times. This means that we're only able to book new films for you quite close to when it's being released in cinemas. This means that if a print programme is two months in advance, like yours used to be, we won’t be able to book certain films for you and therefore it won’t make it into your programme until months after everyone has had the film.

There can also be quite last-minute changes to the film slate, and a film might change to a new release date. This is why sometimes a film is printed in a brochure but never ends up playing!

So by moving to a monthly programme, we can get you the very best programme of the newest releases and closer to when they're released.

We love working with Stamford and can’t wait to bring an amazing slate of films to you.

www.independentcinemaoffice.org.uk 

To check out our latest cinema listings, click HERE!