The book by David Curtis, a British specialist in the field of art cinema, fills an important lacuna in art history, located between professional cinematography and visual art. These are films united by the concept of "niche" cinema, as well as videos, installations, and multimedia works by artists of the 20th and 21st centuries - not only painters, sculptors, representatives of pop art, land art, and conceptual art, but also amateur filmmakers, as well as "shop" directors who made a bet on independence from the commercial tasks of the film industry and the spirit of experimentation. Their search is not limited to the image and plot: they affect the entire world of cinema — from production and filming technologies, manipulations with film, light, color, sound, screen, cinema hall and the viewer to reflection on the status of the film and its author. David Curtis groups voluminous material — films by more than four hundred authors from around the world — thematically, leaving room for unbiased observations about cinema and its creators.