Breach the prison walls tomorrow night at Oak Hampton Penitentiary, a short bus ride from a mocked-up courtroom somewhere inside Bethnal Green Library.  A two-year stretch awaits you.

None of this will make any sense -- except when I tell you that tomorrow night is Instagrammer’s Night at Secret Cinema.  Following news of an incoming storm, the State of Oak Hampton went through a massive crime wave.  The newly-appointed Head of Justice clamped down on the criminals, imprisoning nearly 14,000.  Over the coming weeks and months, the prison underwent a cultural renaissance, with performances by musicians including Mercury Prize-nominated Sam Lee, the construction of a Secret Restaurant, Secret Gallery -- even a Secret Hotel!

Tomorrow night’s screening is the world’s favourite cult classic, The Shawshank Redemption.  We don’t need to tell you how wonderful the film is; you’ve almost definitely already seen it.  If you’ve not felt the immersive experience of a Secret Cinema, then this is the one for you.

Future Cinema presents The Shawshank Redemption is on Thursday 24 Jan.  Tickets are available here.

Despite Friday’s proclamation that there won’t be too much happening in town until at least the middle of the month, we can always find you something to do.  In fact, we’ve a bit of a treat for you today.  Roman Polanski might be celebrating his 80^th birthday this year, and we might know him best today as the man who turned his life and career around following allegations of sordid behaviour, but there was a time when he was the hottest property around.  In the 60s and 70s, he made Knife in the Water, Repulsion, Cul-de-Sac, Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown, almost all back-to-back.  One of them gets a rare rerelease into two cinemas this week for a very limited time only.

Repulsion, Polanski’s second film, his first in English, was shot in London at the height of the Swinging Sixties.  Catherine Deneuve is the Belgian manicurist living in Kensington with her sister.  She sleepwalks through her days and flirts awkwardly with men.  When Carol’s sister goes on holiday with her boyfriend, the walls of the apartment suddenly start to make Carol feel more than a little claustrophobic…

What can be said about this film other than its undeniably quality as a classic?  Catherine Deneuve proves her star-making assets (this is the film that made her an icon the 1960s) and is sexy and scary in equal measure.  Its monochrome aesthetic is often replicated, never bettered, and it was the first of Polanski’s apartment trilogy, coming before Rosemary’s Baby, with Mia Farrow, and The Tenant, starring Isabelle Adjani.  There are only a few films like Repulsion, and you’ll rarely see them on the big screen.

Repulsion is currently playing at BFI Southbank and Curzon Soho.

Amber Atherton, Founder & Director of MyFlashTrash.com, returns from a visit to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, with reflections on the meeting of art, commerce and ideas.

The little TV screens on my Azerbaijan Airways flight to the country’s capital, Baku, flickered and lit up the faces of my fellow passengers. Scottish oil rig workers, business men and botoxed, bleach blondes, we stood out from your typical Azerbaijani traveller; part of a small handful of British guests invited as guests of Leyla Aliyeva to the opening of the country's first Four Seasons hotel.

Incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1920, Azerbaijan regained independence in 1991 and began its rise into a capitalist driven free market.  The Baku of today aims arrest the country’s history of democratic repression and establish a cultural reputation, cultivating freedom of expression through the arts.

Keen to develop a relationship with the global art community, organisations such as YARAT! have emerged to provide a platform for Azeri artists, though a tour of the Baku Museum of Modern Art hints at a city concerned with attracting a new type of wealth – not for the first time.  In 1864 the first commercial oil well brought on the self-styled 'Caspian Sea Gold Rush', which led to prospectors and entrepreneurs flocking to Baku. The capital’s fairly nondescript terrain was transformed into a grand European-influenced city teeming with opera houses and theatres.  Azerbaijan is now undergoing a second cultural rebirth following seventy-odd years of Soviet occupation.  From within the walled old city of Baku (a UNESCO-listed world heritage site), the city’s newly-prosperous have a profound desire to celebrate their country’s heritage while retaining a hunger to interact and make an impact on the world stage.

And it’s art, then, that will act as the vehicle for this international discourse, posing as an emblem of intellect and social respect -- lets hope it also acts as an education and gives Azeri artists the chance to give their nation a distinctive cultural voice.  And, for the Azeris, hopefully somewhere in this country there is a native Damien Hirst lurking, waiting to jump on this wagon of wealth, inspiring his fellow public to take advantage of this grand PR coup.

image one: Artworks from the Museum of Modern Art, Baku.

image two: Philarmony Park, Baku.