Peeping Tom's meets twice a month at the Arts Theatre Club in deepest Soho. The combination of the name and the location gave rise to a visit by the local constabulary in the club's early days but they left, disappointed not to find a seedy corner of the porn industry. The venue is the perfect hang-out in which to discuss and plan your next project. A couple of doors along from Ronnie Scott's in Frith Street, you descend into a basement bar reminscent of something from the sixties: red crushed-velvet style banquettes, large mirrors in fantastically ornate frames and a rotating mirror ball. The atmosphere is very informal and friendly and the organisers make a point of ensuring that the club is as inclusive and encouraging as possible. Now in its sixth year, Peeping Tom's has become a productive and enjoyable part of London's filmmaking culture and is now quite unique amongst film societies in London. It is a place where people at various stages of film production (and those who simply love independent films) can come together and exchange ideas, watch films and learn. Peeping Tom's is an educational experience too, and the guest speakers are often leaders in their field.

When Kaprice Kea established the club in 1993 as an information exchange for aspiring independent filmmakers, he wanted to break down the barriers to making a film and shed light on the mysteries of the industry. "I started Peeping Tom's to cultivate a little bit of knowledge at grassroots level. I wanted to demystify the filmmaking process", he says. His five guiding principles were confidence, communication, co-operation, completeness and continuity and, even though the industry has moved on, those core values are still valid. Kaprice's first meeting was in Wilde's, a nightclub in Gerrard Street (now The Clinic) and he remembers the evening well. He managed to get hold of a large number of film cans and he stacked them into seating to give the place a movie atmosphere and, along with a background of film soundtracks, the first networking session took place. From this acorn, Peeping Tom's has grown into the club it is today.

When Kaprice decided to make The Hurting, the film he took to Cannes in 1994, he passed the day-to-day organisation of the club to Françoise Lamy until the summer of 1998. Along with Thomas Frenzi and Martin Comer, Françoise developed the club, starting to invite guest speakers and show short films and pop promos. In early 1995, the first guest was Stephen Woolley producer of Interview With The Vampire and, spurred on by the success of that evening it was decided to make question and answer sessions a regular thing. When James Ferman of the BBFC came to speak on the thorny issue of film censorship, journalist David McGillivray was also invited. McGillivray was working on an anti-censorship magazine called Scapegoat and the debate that ensued was very lively. Françoise remembers that the evening gave Peeping Tom's a much higher profile and led to it gaining something of a reputation in the industry.

In independent filmmaking, it's hard to get more high profile than Mike Leigh and his visit to the club was not only exciting and informative but entertaining...