Genesis Cinema is any movie-lover’s dream, with classic movie posters hanging on exposed brick with film club leaflets littering the bar.

But the independent venue, on Mile End in east London , has been pushed beneath the waves of whatever new world-ending event would hit it next.

Lockdowns , the cost-of-living crisis and the Hollywood writers’ strike put the brakes on the most successful years the cinema had ever had in 2019.

‘It has just been one thing after another,’ owner Tyrone Walker-Hebborn said. ‘The price of popcorn alone went up 300%, but of course we couldn’t put our costs up because then no one would come.’

Left with no choice but to re-work the building, the 60-year-old came up with a clever plan: To build student accommodation on top of the cinema.

This, he says, w

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