“For my teenage self, living by the Thames Estuary a world away from the exotic East, Rayns’ accounts in Monthly Film Bulletin and Sight & Sound of Beijing night clubs and Hong Kong Film Festivals were like dispatches from another planet. He was present at many critical moments in movie history, including the premiere of Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express (1994), which started an hour late because the projectionist refused to begin before the last two reels had arrived from the developing lab. Such experiences made Tony a pivotal presence in the exhibition and distribution sectors, sometimes as the programmer who discovered them, sometimes as the subtitler who made them comprehensible.”

Over at MediaOCD, I write an obituary for Tony Rayns.