Andi Engel was very well named. He and Pam at Artificial Eye made cinemagoing in London bearable for me after I had spent many years in Paris which has, catagorically, the widest choice of films in the world. What elevated Andi above all film distributers was that he programmed films that he loved, without giving a shit whether it would make money or not. I remember going on the second night at the Renoir to see Oliveira's Jouney to The Beginning of the World, and being among an audience of three. But, to Andi, those three people were important and entitled to see Oliveira's latest film. However, when Andi was in his cups, which was often, he could be impossible. I recall a dinner given for Oliveira at the French Institute when Andi suddenly said, 'Maestro, why don't you make a film one day that people want to see?'

Its preferable not to imagine how bleak the film-going (and video watching) landscape would have been without Artificial Eye. I didn't live in London, so have rarely visited their cinemas (although when I did it was always to see something wonderful), but I felt their impact via the many great films they distributed, and the superb back-catalogue. For a while Artificial Eye produced a film magazine, edited by Pam and Andi, which was extremely serious, but titled, very appropriately, Enthusiasm. My only 'live' encounter with Andi was when he sat on a panel at the London Film Festival in 1999 about the future of independent film, and did an eye-opening breakdown of the costs (expenditure vs income) of distributing 'foreign' films, and decried the recent decision of TV channels to stop showing showing as many subtitled films. His anger and honesty about the situation are something that I'll never forget.