A few months back when planning August I thought “what the hell are we going to screen?!” – from a non-mainstream perspective it was looking pretty thin, to put it mildly. So I’m just back from holiday and look at the weekend figures and remember that we are screening 11 films (we are a three screen cinema) all of which are excellent examples of world cinema ranging from Xavier Beauvois’s well reviewed The Guardians to Icelandic tragic comic Under the Tree. And the good news – they are all getting appreciative audiences.

New opener The Guardians posted our highest weekend figures, which was great as it was on split shows. Next highest was the second weekend of The Escape which maintains a strong audience again on split shows. Third was the second weekend of Under the Tree. It was good to see the Icelandic film hold for a second week. And indeed looking back we could easily have held Paraguayan film The Heiresses. Similarly, there was demand for a third week of Apostasy, but space meant we could only fit it in on weekdays in its third week.

Elsewhere, The Eyes of Orson Welles was helped by a preview Q&A with the director, Sunday brunch one-off of Spike Lee’s Crooklyn continues to get solid admissions for his brunch season and Gleaning Truths: Agnes Varda retrospective continues to attract healthy figures. Never mind Joan Crawford’s Double Bill and family films including Anime18 season.

Overall then, great to see August packed with world cinema and attracting appreciative audiences.

• Mark Cosgrove, Cinema Curator, Watershed