The twelve students of the Architectural Association Diploma 7 flew from London to Lalibela, Ethiopia to help fulfil the town’s dream to have a cinema. During five nights, our collapsible glowing screen drew hundreds of villagers and helped us develop thesis projects suited to the needs of this community. The community was not told what to expect, so the emergence of a 15m-long fabric sock from the back of a white van caused delight and intrigue. The collapsible Slinky-like structure was designed to enclose backstage space during screenings, with a screen at one end, a projector halfway along its length and a generator at the open end, located far enough away so as not to be heard by the audience. As dusk fell, crowds of up to 500 villagers gathered and the whole thing came to life, transforming off-the shelf tent poles and a bag of polyester netting into a giant animated glow-worm.