Star and Shadow Cinema Co-op (Newcastle, UK) in conversation with B-Movie Cinema (Hamburg, Germany)
 
Star and Shadow Cinema is a volunteer-run DIY space for Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, in the UK. It is set up as an open-to-join co-operative and housed in a building it owns. The Venue operates a 'safe space' policy made, and is made up of people from differing cultural perspectives (artist-run spaces, radical left politics, direct action, Free/Libre Open Source culture, organising against the Gleneagles G8, LGBTQ*, DIY music/film). The editorial line is dedicated to culture coming from and/or programmed by the grass roots - particularly cinema and music. The Star and Shadow initiative evolved from screenings, events and debates at the Side Cinema, Waygood Gallery, and Bookville from 2001-2005 for which sources of inspiration came from European underground film and squat culture, situationism, and a vision of culture protected from state and market cultivated hierarchies of power and commercialization.
Emphasising the collective experience that makes cinema special, Star and Shadow exists as a space for a dialogic approach to culture through critical, active spectatorship: watching, listening, thinking and talking collectively and then possibly programming something yourself.