Cinema: Coming to a screen near you

Curzon is offering to lend its expertise to art centres and community buildings

To London's film buffs Curzon will be a familiar name. From its cinemas in Mayfair, Soho, Brunswick Square, Chelsea and Richmond it screens arthouse films that you won't catch at your local multiplex. Now it's offering to lend out its name, equipment and programme selection expertise to art centres, theatres and community buildings across the country to set up "part-time cinemas".

It's great news for film fans in a world dominated by the popcorn stench and sticky carpets of Vue and Cineworld and is, says Charles Gant, film reviewer for Heat, "a chance for Curzon to unlock the value in its brand outside of the capital". So far, The Bridport Arts Centre and the Watermark events centre in Ivybridge have all signed up, but the company hopes to attract smaller venues, too. And with rural village pubs and shops closing their doors at a rapid rate it could be the perfect chance to boost the countryside's cultural life. So if you're a small-town publican struggling for punters, a parish councillor with an empty hall or even a village clergyman with a love of Sergei Eisenstein and an empty church mid-week, now's the time get behind the reel.