Imagining October explores art and politics in the final years of the Cold War, drawing connections between pre-Perestroika Russia and Thatcherite Britain. The title refers to the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and Sergei Eisenstein's propaganda film October: Ten Days That Shook the World 1928. The project began during a trip to the Soviet Union sponsored by the British Film Institute in October 1984. Jarman was invited to present The Tempest in Moscow and Baku with fellow filmmaker Sally Potter and film theorist Peter Wollen and asked in return to make a short film for the London Film Festival in November.