Scalarama 2018 Newspaper by Scalarama

SEPTEMBER 2018

FREE

ISSUE 4

SCALARAMA.COM

SCALA CINEMA 1978 - 1993

FROM ONE LEGEND , MAY A HUNDRED CINEMAS RISE

Scala Cinema Book Merchandise

The Return of presents

the Scala Cinema!

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A Book Launch starring The Great Futuristic Horror Trailer Show

Wednesday 26th September 2018 m

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Tickets ÂŁ11 from DICE.fm

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September 1-30, 2018

A Celebration of Cinema Every September 1-30 September 2018 – SCALARAMA NEWSPAPER 2018

SCALARAMA

WELCOME! Welcome to Scalarama, the annual celebration of cinema

Editor Arjun Sajip

@ArjSaj

Designers Chris Jackson Jonathan Spencer

that sees September transformed into a month of amazing

@c_s_jackson @jonathanjspencer

films screened in unusual locations. Scalarama is by

Front Cover Photograph Rob Brown Photography

everyone, for everyone, throughout the land, and has DIY

Contributors Laura Ager, Derin Ajao, Josh Andrews, Robb Barham, Simon Brand, Maria Cabrera, Jackson Caines, William Fowler, Ian Francis, Jane Giles, Suzy Gillett, Becki Hawkes, Neil Hepburn, Ehsan Khoshbakht, Amos Levin, Helen MacKenzie, Catriona Mahmoud, Michael McDermott, Megan Mitchell, Andrew Northrop, Carla Owens, Ella Penfold, Vic Pratt, Sabine Putorti, Amanda Randall, David Rattigan, Selina Robertson, Monika Rodriguez, Iain Robert Smith, Will Swinburne, Matt Turner, William Webb, Sean Welsh, Amy Zaaiman

pounding through its veins – and with loads of support

Acknowledgments Big thanks to Annabel Grundy, Eleanor Thornley, Andy Rae, Harvey Fenton, Philip Foxwood and Andy Green

local support, email hello@scalarama.com. And most

The Scalarama 2018 Newspaper is supported by Uprising!: The Spirit of ‘68, a major programme organised by the BFI Film Audience Network, delivering funds from the National Lottery.

out there, there’s never been a better time to get screening. Find tips on how to get started at scalarama. com, find local film screenings at scalarama.com/events, and for more information about Scalarama or to find importantly, get thinking – what would you screen?

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR I never went to the Scala Cinema.

– ANIM18 ZINE Anim18 Ambassadors James Calver, Imogen Dodds, Alex Osben, Kirsty Prescott Project Coordinator Dan Thomas With thanks to Um Mohamed, Rebecca Goldsmith and all at Film Hub Wales – SCALARAMA 2018 Producer Michael Pierce Coordinators Michael McDermott (Sussex), Helen Mackenzie, Will Swinburne (London), Sean Welsh (Scotland), Ieva Rotomskye, Sarah Nisbet (Edinburgh), Laura Ager, Alice Miller (Leeds), Monika Rodriguez (Liverpool), Neil Hepburn (Highlands and Islands), Sam Barnett, Rosie Thompson (Sheffield) Scalarama Patron Andrea Novarin Contact Cinema Nation, 15 Cairns Street, Liverpool, L8 2UN hello@scalarama.com www.scalarama.com @Scalarama Printed by Iliffe Print, Cambridge on recycled paper. © 2018 by Cinema Nation, the artists, authors and photographers.

Not sure you can blame me, though: I was six weeks old when it finally closed its doors in June 1993. Maybe you never went either – whether through being born at the wrong time, or being in the wrong place, or not wanting to hang about in King’s Cross (a far less salubrious place in the ’80s and ’90s than it is today). But there’s a reason this newspaper exists, and it’s to spread nationwide the love of cinema and adventurous film programming the Scala represented. Founded in 1978 and originally located on Tottenham Street in Fitzrovia, central London, the Scala soon moved to Pentonville Road, and – as an utterly unique single-screen cinema – began to make a bit of a name for itself. Or names, plural: one of its monikers was ‘the Sodom Odeon’, thanks to its screening of notoriously sexually explicit cult films like Thundercrack! and Café Flesh. Being a membership cinema, it was beholden to Camden Council rather than the BBFC for screening unclassified films. But alongside such illicit showings, it developed a reputation for stimulating, inspired film programming, and captured the hearts of youngsters who went on to join the many British stars in Hollywood’s firmament. Martin McDonagh won a caption competition there. The Theory of Everything director James Marsh was a regular. And to this day, Christopher Nolan carries his old Scala membership card in his wallet. (His assistant sent a photo to prove it.) Why did the Scala inspire such devotion? Well, it was progressive: its LGBTQthemed “Blue Mondays” made it a haven for people all along the gender spectrum wanting to be represented on screen.

(Even Ken Livingstone was once spotted at an avant-garde lesbian erotica strand with, according to then-programmer Jane Giles, ‘a woman on each arm’.) It was transgressive: the cinema was embroiled in bitter litigation for a year when the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) took it to task for illegally screening A Clockwork Orange in 1992. It was inclusive: it screened all manner of films, old and new, famous and obscure, foreign and (sometimes literally) homemade. Also, it was home to three cute tabbies: Warren, Huston and Roy, named after Oates, John and Kinnear respectively. That the Scala was a zone of communal warmth (albeit freezing auditorium temperatures) made it something of an oasis in an often intimidating King’s Cross. You could even spend the night there: for less than a fiver you’d get admission to one of the Scala’s legendary all-nighters (all-night Arnie, all-night Steve Martin, all-night Monty Python, all-night Mad Max). But most of all, it was the imagination of its programmers: from the original founders Stephen Woolley and Jayne Pilling, to JoAnne Sellar (who now produces Paul Thomas Anderson’s films), to the Californian Mark Valen, to (in her early 20s) Jane Giles, to Helen de Witt. In the words of writer and curator Mark Pilkington, ‘Those of us who grew up staring at video shop shelves may find it unremarkable to see John Waters films running alongside Hitchcock and the Marx Brothers, Dario Argento next to Michael Powell or Fassbinder next to Russ Meyer, but back in the ’80s this kind of gleeful cross-pollination, inspired by underground film clubs and co-ops, represented a free and radical approach to film that would become something of a Scala trademark.’ It proved formative,

not only for the filmmakers mentioned above, but for indie distributors and film programmers and actors. Hence Tilda Swinton felt compelled to introduce a screening of Powell & Pressburger’s The Canterbury Tales at the Roxy in Borough as part of the first Scalarama – called Scala Forever – in 2011. And the legacy of the programming has stayed with us, 25 years after the Scala bid the world adieu. Turn to the back pages of this newspaper and you’ll see listings of cinema screenings up and down the country – often with Q&As, panel discussions, musical accompaniments of culinary tie-ins – that would make the original Scala programmers proud. Scalarama, the nationwide celebration of cinema of which this newspaper is just a part, gives a platform to cult films, “trash” films, art films, forgotten films – as well as plenty of well-known, well-loved classics. These events were in many cases programmed by people in their 20s and 30s, passionate about cinema and about bringing larger audiences into the underwater crannies of the celluloid iceberg. This issue of Scalarama newspaper is themed around “uprisings” and the 50th anniversary of 1968. Well, these programmers represent what might well be termed an “uprising” – a grassroots groundswell of activists whose key aim is to get interesting content onto the big screen, the way it should be seen. And they appear, for the eighth year running, to have succeeded magnificently. @ArjSaj

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September 1-30, 2018

Jane Giles, longtime film programmer at the Scala, gives us the lowdown on the legendary cinema and tells us about her new book, Scala Cinema: 1978-1993.

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You’ve had stints programming at the BFI [British Film Institute]. What’s it like to programme there compared to somewhere like the Scala? Did you feel more constrained? What were the pros and cons? The Scala has a sort of parallel history with the BFI over a long period of time, not just 1978-’93 but going right back to the roots of both. I don’t want to get too much into ‘The BFI’s like this and the Scala’s like that,’ but it is an interesting story, and it’s in the book. All programmers have targets to reach, and tailor their work to the nature of their cinema and its audiences. I’ve been lucky that the venues I’ve worked for have had exceptionally adventurous audiences. The issue comes when programmers get stuck in a rut of their own taste and have fixed ideas of what works and what doesn’t. Venues can then feel formulaic, stagnant and exclusive. Would you ever have considered programming abroad – in America or elsewhere?

DIFFERENT T I M E Well, I used to programme British short films at the International Film Festival at Rotterdam. Short films became a speciality of mine for one reason or another; I really like the format. I used to acquire films for the U.S. distribution arm of Tartan Films, but I never worked in film programming in America. Would I consider it? Well, when you work locally, you really know your audience. Which isn’t to say that the programming concepts are not transferable to other countries or audiences, but in my case it really helped to know very precisely who that local audience was. Who preceded and succeeded you as the Scala’s programmer?

I took over from Mark Valen, an American guy who left the Scala to go back to California. I left the Scala in June 1992 to go into film distribution. I was a bit burnt out by the pressures of working at the Scala; it was a very, very small team, and I was the only programmer. There was one general manager. It was a difficult venue to work at – there was a very high turnover of films, so the burnout factor was very quick. The recession was at full-force, the lease was running out… and King’s Cross was degenerating. It was being run down strategically, in order to make way for the Channel Tunnel high-speed train link. The area was rife with drugdealing, and it was a very difficult place to work.

Also, I was young, and when you’re young you can work somewhere for two or three years and it feels like half your life. So I resigned to go and work at Electric Pictures, which was a distribution company that stole the ground from Palace Pictures – a really important 1980s film production and distribution company. Helen De Witt took over from me when I left.

There’s a common misconception that your illegal screening of A Clockwork Orange was the final nail in the coffin for the Scala, given the court case that followed. Did you expect there to be such a backlash against A Clockwork Orange when you programmed it? Would you have done anything differently? The reason the Scala closed was that the lease ran out. We’d had it on a 12-year lease from July 1981, which ran out in July 1993. That’s absolutely the reason why the cinema closed. In order to renew the lease, the landlord wanted to triple the rent and redevelop the cinema, and the Scala’s directors were bankrupt. We had plans for redevelopment but we couldn’t get investment in those plans. It’s very, very mundane. The reason why people think that A Clockwork Orange caused the cinema to close is that the film had been programmed the year before, on 1 April 1992, and the cinema was pushed into a year-long court case by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT). It had never had a theatrical cinema case before, and saw it as a kind of juicy high-profile case, so it pushed for prosecution. So something that really should have been sorted out on an industry basis became a matter of public prosecution, which was insane. It was a very different time. The Scala was a cinema that took chances in terms of the type of material it showed, and as a repertory cinema its remit was to show a very wide and adventurous range of films. A Clockwork Orange was a film that lots of people wanted to see, but wasn’t available. So I was offered a collector’s print of it. I put it on in a very low-key way. Did I think I was going to be pushed into a year-long court case? No, I didn’t. If I’d known that… well, hindsight is a wonderful thing but foresight’s better, isn’t it! How has film programming, especially at grassroots level, changed compared to the early ’90s? What are the pros and cons of programming now? Well, there are two main things. One is that double- and triple-bills and allnighters don’t really exist anymore. You get the occasional thing – I noticed the other day that the Prince Charles Cinema is doing five surprise films in a row, for example. But the Scala used to do Saturday all-nighters every single week, as well as occasional all-day and all-night programmes. Going to see just one film is now what people do. Nobody goes to see a double-bill, a triplebill or an all-day screening. And what’s lost with that is a kind of alchemy that comes out of the interaction of [backto-back] films. That doesn’t really exist anymore. The other really massive change is that now pretty much everything is digitally projected, mostly via DCPs but also – in film clubs and societies – via DVDs or Blu-rays. When I was programming, I could only show what was available on 16mm or 35mm, and that really delimited what was available in terms of choice. But it also rendered a completely

September 1-30, 2018

different visual experience. I know there’s a lot of argument about this – people are fed up with old people like me banging on about the magic of 35mm or 16mm. But I strongly believe that it has a luminosity and an effect that is different from that of DCPs and Blurays, no matter how brilliant. There’s a depth of image and a quality of projection, not necessarily high-quality but just a different texture, in the medium of film that is lacking in digital formats. To me, that’s absolutely unarguable, whether or not the audience realises it consciously. In terms of the actual content, I don’t really know. I think there are more documentaries these days; I also think there are fewer short films around. There’s definitely less repertory cinema around as well. What about some of the institutional infrastructure around programming, whether at a large establishment or not – has that changed? Has it become easier or harder for programmers to acquire screening rights to films? It’s definitely become easier. The advent of the Internet has made [rights] easier to track down, particularly the advent of social media. Whether or not rightsholders’ recognition of the financial value of those rights has altered and become more realistic, I don’t know. There were a number of distribution companies all programmers and cinemas dealt with. And also – this is really important – the BFI used to have this fantastic department called the Information Department. And you could phone them up and speak to these two amazingly knowledgeable people, Tony Mechele and Peter Todd, and you’d ask who had the rights to a given film. These two guys had been tracking distribution

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history for years – companies changed name, rights-holders changed, films went in and out of distribution. They literally kept track of everything. It was a fantastic service, and was completely free – the most amazing thing. But the BFI closed it down when the Internet came. They didn’t wanna pay these two guys to do other people’s research for them. The Scala was very inspired by two cinemas in California: the Nuart in Los Angeles and the Roxie in San Francisco. If the Scala was trying to track down the rights to something really obscure, like Thundercrack!, which those cinemas showed, we’d phone our fellow programmers [on the East Coast] and ask where they got the prints. But it was really expensive to import 35mm film prints, so that didn’t happen very often. At over 400 large pages, your book is pretty big! How did you manage to get it off the ground, and who invested in it? The majority of it was crowdfunded. We knew from the outset that it was a nonprofit proposition for any publisher; it’s a real passion project. And we knew that the people who feel strongly about the Scala were the people that used to go there. So we thought it was an ideal candidate for crowdfunding. Social media is at a point where crowdfunding is really viable. I’d set up a Facebook group called Scala Staff & Friends, which is very active – for people to swap memories and touch base with each other. So we went for it, and the majority of the funds came from individuals pre-ordering the book through Indiegogo.

at a higher level [of investment] to subsidise production costs. We had thirteen “angels” who came in with £1,000 each. One more question: if you could pick three stand-out memories from your years at the Scala, what would they be? Personally? My hero Nick Cave coming to introduce his choice of double-bill [Pixote and Wake in Fright], and read from his book And the Ass Saw the Angel in September 1989. I showed him the view from the Scala roof over King’s Cross at night. [Sighs] Secondly, a beautiful Chinese nun floating down the staircase one Blue Monday [the Scala’s LGBT day]. She’d just popped in to use the ladies’ loo, but by the late ’80s the Scala had become a cruising ground on gay days, so she may have seen more than she expected. I’ll never forget Roy, one of the Scala kittens, dangling by his claws from the screen drapes during a screening of Carnival of Souls. I don’t know why. I loved those cats, and when the cinema closed in ’93 they came home to live with me.

Scala Cinema: 1978-1993, which features every Scala programme from the cinema’s 16-year history as well as a comprehensive history of the Scala itself, is available through FAB Press. The book will be launched at the Scala in King’s Cross on Wednesday 26 September. Visit scalarama.com/scalacinema for details.

Secondarily, we reached out to a number of individuals working in the film industry, to ask them to come in

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One of the recurring themes of Scalarama 2018 is the 50-year legacy of 1968 and the cinematic activities it enkindled. But are anniversaries just a trip into nostalgia or is there something deeper, more substantial, more cyclical at play? When thinking on the monumental power shifts of both 1918 (the end of the First World War, the start of women getting the vote in the UK) and 1968, what time is better and more urgent than now for cinemas to use their ability to reach into the past to imagine what new uprisings could look like?

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September 1-30, 2018

1968 For Uprising! The Spirit of 68, a major season organised by BFI Film Audience Network, Scalarama has thought about this question whilst compiling this newspaper, and we start off this investigation by asking four programmers who have connected with the anniversary this year to explore the approaches and the outcomes of their screenings.

Selina Robertson, part of Club des Femmes, who toured feminist-focused films stemming from 1918–1968 and 1981 as part of the season ‘Revolt, She Said: Women and Film after ’68’:

vicar ran the Double Zero coffee bar for thousands of bikers who had nowhere else to gather.

Ian Francis, director of Flatpack Film Festival in Birmingham, explores the spread of the ‘Uprising! The Spirit of ‘68’ season and how it inspired him to reflect on his own city during that tumultuous year. The notion of a 1968-inspired film season may provoke groans from some. ‘Ageing radicals rhapsodising about the past? That’s the last thing we need right now!’ But cut beneath the familiar clichés of ’68, and that uniquely combustible moment has all kinds of resonances with what is happening around us every day. Generations clash. Global turmoil. The birth of identity politics. Enoch Powell’s polarising ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, which echoes uncomfortably after the Brexit vote. It was also an incredibly fertile time for film. At Film Hub Midlands, our hope in inviting people to pitch in with their own ideas for Uprising events and seasons was that we could highlight a broader, international perspective on socially engaged cinema. We weren’t disappointed. From Scotland to the south coast, from Belfast to Newcastle, Uprising! The Spirit of ‘68 has sparked screenings, commissions and conversations dizzying in their variety. Film programmers have taken a chance to revisit the Black Power movement, juxtaposing late ’60s material with contemporary activism, and, half a century on from Dagenham, to reflect on the changing face of feminism. The Star and Shadow Cinema in Newcastle ventured beyond ’68’s Eurocentric narrative to explore the terrain of revolution in Cuba and the Philippines, while the Radical Film Network sparked a series of miniature ‘uprisings’ (in the form

of politically inspired film festivals) across Glasgow and Leeds. It wasn’t all storming the barricades either, with plenty of room for zombies and psychedelia and a chance to revisit some of the more unhinged, freewheeling moments of that period including a new restoration of Toshio Matsumoto’s Tokyo underground classic Funeral Parade of Roses (1969).

If Birmingham gets a mention in histories of 1968, it is generally as the location for Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. But this is only a sliver of the story, at a moment when the city was undergoing a radical transformation that decanted thousands from back-to-backs into high-rise flats while glimmers of the counterculture shone in the unlikeliest corners. Above a furniture shop in Erdington, a new club called Mothers became a musical mecca for the likes of Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd and John Lee Hooker. The same summer, a group of young people began to fundraise for an ‘arts lab’, eventually opening a multidisciplinary space in a Newtown back street, including a cinema scavenged from building sites and projector parts. Meanwhile in a dilapidated Digbeth church, a maverick

All of these stories and more formed part of the 12th Flatpack Film Festival this April, a chance to reflect on how the Birmingham we know today began to take shape at this time of dizzying change. As part of the screening programme we were able to revisit the likes of BBC documentary The Asian Teenagers in the company of Dilip Hiro, the Indian-born journalist who unearthed its candid, funny interviewees, and the Media Archive for Central England dusted off ATV footage which had been unseen for fifty years – including scenes of a post-Powell protest dubbed ‘Black and White Unite and Fight’. Thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund, the project has continued beyond the festival, giving us an opportunity to delve more deeply into the tales of displacement, discrimination, activism and experimentation that have emerged in the process. It’s been particularly heartening to see younger audiences respond to the ideas within the season, and to see 1968’s legacy reinterpreted on a local level. We hope that one lasting side-effect of Uprising is that exhibitors committed to this kind of work will continue to connect with one another and to share resources and ideas. @flatpack

Towards the end of 2017 we had a meeting in a tapas bar in King’s Cross. In the meeting we decided that in 2018 we wanted to get out of London and see what was going on across the UK. At almost the same time, we were fortuitously approached by the ICO (the Independent Cinema Office, where I also work) about collaborating on a nationwide film tour in 2018. We worked together on exploring ideas for an early blueprint that marked three significant moments for women in the 20th century. Firstly, the year 1918 and one hundred years since the Suffragettes’ successful campaign to grant the partial vote for women. Secondly, the 50th anniversary of May 1968 and the Women’s Liberation Movement that ensued; and thirdly, 1981, the year the Greenham Common Women’s Peace camp in Berkshire was founded – a shining revolutionary example of non-violent feminist peace activism that changed lives and laws.

We launched the tour on 1 May, deciding to include nine feature films (a mix of documentary and fiction) as well as programming as many shorts as possible. We borrowed Laura Mulvey’s idea of montage programming, whereby two films are placed together in juxtaposition to create a new meaning. Spanning a timeframe of 1966-1991, our aim was to counter the mainstream narrative of May ’68 and to explode some of the mythology around it. Yes, the students took to the streets, the workers joined them and then ten million French citizens went on strike, but then what happened, and whose history are we referring to? At university I remember reading about the failure of ’68. History tends to get written and remembered by the loudest voices, and change inevitably happens gradually. May ’68 was a movement, not a moment, and our film season set out to explore the queer, feminist and postcolonial legacies that were kickstarted from that pivotal year, shifting the focus away from Paris to the global intersectional struggles and activisms of the late 20th century. The title for the tour was inspired by

September 1-30, 2018

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WHAT’S IN A NUMBER? the Bulgarian-French philosopher Julia Kristeva’s 2002 book Revolt, She Said, in which she wrote: ‘May ’68 in France expressed a fundamental version of freedom: not freedom to succeed, but freedom to revolt. Political revolutions ultimately betray revolt because they cease to question themselves. Revolt, as I understand it – psychic revolt, analytic revolt, artistic revolt – refers to a permanent state to questioning, of transformations, an endless probing of appearances.’ Working with the incredibly supportive and always brilliant ICO, we decided to focus our attention on working with six flagship venues across the UK with panels of local feminist speakers. As this is a feminist film project, we initially approached venues run by women or had women programmers as part of the team. We are midway through the flagship screenings, having hosted amazing events in Glasgow, Sheffield, Nottingham, and in August we’re touring Cardiff, Bristol and London. We have also been working online through Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and offline with regional press and with local grassroots feminist organisations, activists, journalists, film clubs and collectives to build momentum on the tour dates, discussions and

introductions as well as sharing contextual information on our filmmakers and their films. We have made a ‘Revolt, She Said’ zine (which is free to download on our website) with specially commissioned essays by our “friends des femmes” on some of the key films. To mark the century of women’s suffrage we are working with regional archives to find out what filmic material they hold on early women’s liberation and the Women’s Movement of the 1970s and ’80s. So far it has been hard to access any archive material due to the high costs involved, but we are hoping that we might be able to show some of this precious history on film in August. So far the response has been incredible: we have smashed our target with over 80 screenings from Belfast to Bo’Ness to Cornwall, and we salute three trailblazing cinemas – Eden Court in Inverness, Filmhouse in Edinburgh and Regent Street Cinema in London – that are screening the entire tour!

One of the most important aspects of the tour is the legacy we hope to leave behind for future feminist programmers and curators and audiences. There were many films we would have liked to include but because of issues of rights, materials, preservation or cost it just was not possible. However, we are proud to say that Riddles of the Sphinx (1977), Maeve (1981), Carry Greenham Home (1983), Before Stonewall (1984) and A Place of Rage (1991) are now available on DCP for the very first time thanks to collaborations with UK distributors Cinenova, Contemporary Films, Peccadillo Pictures and the BFI. Although we close the tour on 31 August, we leave with a call to arms for the archiving, restoration and digitisation of radical films by women, especially from the Global South, so that a fuller film history can be achieved.

‘Revolt, She Said: Women and Film after ’68’ runs from 1 May–31 August 2018. For more information visit clubdesfemmes.com. @clubdesfemmes

Laura Ager, coordinator of the Radical Film Network’s co-produced RFN1968 festival, on how a programme comes together. The Radical Film Network (RFN) brings together filmmakers, academics, exhibitors, grassroots media collectives, critics and cultural activists from over 100 different countries around the world. Individual members’ interests are varied, but tend towards the production, circulation and exhibition of explicitly political films, forms of video activism and aesthetically radical experimental cinema. Members of the network meet up at least once a year, sometimes more often, to share their varied perspectives on film and cinema practices. It was at one of these meetings, in Liverpool in 2016, that the question first was mooted about whether the RFN would like to respond as a network to a single theme: the forthcoming 50th anniversary of 1968 – a political ‘moment’ that seemed to reach around the world. This project had a precedent. In 2015 six exhibition groups in the UK that were affiliated to the RFN had collectively organised a ‘simultaneous screening’ of McLibel (Fanny Armstrong, 2005) as part of Scalarama. It was proposed that the ‘1968 festival’ would be a more ambitious set of screenings, taking place over a longer period, and that this would require some central co-ordination. I volunteered to take on this challenge and, working with Scalarama’s Michael Pierce, replicated Scalarama’s open-platform model for what came to be known as the RFN68 festival. Research for a potential film programme used the online app Padlet, which allowed RFN members anywhere in the world to share articles, pictures, video clips and book suggestions onto a big research board, thereby building a set of broad themes. These were shared and refined at the next RFN conference in Tolpuddle in 2017; ideas that emerged included student activism, mass strikes, postcolonial struggles, anti-Soviet and anti-Fascist uprisings, modern art, assassinations, European internationalism, the Cultural Revolution in China, the 1968 Olympics, afro-futurism, anti-war activism, hippy music festivals and a growing awareness of the environment (the first photograph of Earth, the blue planet, to be taken by astronauts was snapped during the Apollo mission in 1968). An open call for participation was sent out through RFN communication channels in late 2017, announcing that the response from members could be anything at all. Immediately the RFN Scotland group got to work, crowdsourcing an impressive, month-long programme of events that took place throughout May, with multiple groups and organisations

taking part, opening up space for film watching, conversations and learning. In Leeds, my own pop-up film project Film Fringe put on 12 events in the same month, working in collaboration with the Hyde Park Picture House and a diverse range of non-cinema spaces. Film screenings were augmented by speakers and DJs to ensure that each event was unique.

Another collective RFN screening was attempted by booking Ken Loach’s 1968 TV film The Big Flame for six screenings. These have so far been held in Glasgow, Leeds and London, with the film’s producer and longstanding Loach associate Tony Garnett in attendance at all three. Other 1968-inspired events have now taken place in Berlin, Zurich, London, Plymouth, Liverpool, Hexham and Falmouth, some of these in conjunction with the Film Audience Network’s ‘Uprising’ season and the ‘Revolt, She Said’ project described above. But the RFN programme isn’t over yet! After a summer break, RFN members will be presenting a clutch of ‘68-related events as part of this year’s Scalarama. If anyone is interested in taking part in the RFN festival before the year ends, they should get in touch with Laura at lifflaura@riseup.net. @RFN_1968

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FREE IN As someone who curates thematic seasons as well as retrospectives dedicated to history’s great cineastes, I ask myself and my team one question: should we celebrate May ’68? And if so, how? The Institut de l’image was established in 1988 by Emmanuelle Ferrari, a woman very much of her generation and profoundly marked by the militancy of that era. Having taken over 15 years ago, I had wanted in 2008 to put together a retrospective around the theme ‘Love: Transformed by May ‘68’, which would therefore include films about lovers and the taboos they broke.

Sabine Putorti, director of the Institut de l’image in Aix en Provence, talks us through the thinking behind her film season ‘Un vent de liberté (autour de mai 68)’ (‘Freedom in the Air: On May ‘68’).

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THE

This year, we came up with the idea of finding films that could shed light on society as it was before, to make it clearer what exactly was being rebelled against. So, with liberation as our thematic thread, we hit upon the theme ‘freedom in the air’. This ‘air’ or ‘wind’ applied to cinema itself, to the very act of filmmaking. We know about how the New Wavers and the young critics at Cahiers du Cinéma, supported by Cinémathèque Française curator Henri Langlois, blockaded the Cannes Film Festival by occupying the Odéon. Movie-making collectives forged at the start of the ’60s were filmed taking part in the strikes. With ’68 came a global revolution that was enacted through freedom of speech and a questioning of all the authorities – family, school, places of work. Intimate spaces became political. May ’68 cleared the way for feminist movements and all manner of emancipations. It’s this angle we privileged in our programme, showing how, since its origins – most notably in the work of anarchist filmmaker Jean Vigo – cinema became a way of attaining such liberty. We wanted to commemorate France’s most important filmmakers: Vigo, Godard, but also Jean-Louis Comolli, Jacques Kébadian, witnesses, actors, militants. We also wanted to open it up to Italy and Germany, embodied by Bernardo Bertolucci and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The “young Turks” of the Cahiers du Cinéma – cinephiles and critics – took to task an outdated French cinema for not capturing the reality of youth. They hated Jacques Becker’s Rendezvous in July and Marcel Carné’s Les Tricheurs (Young Sinners). In these

time-frozen figures, they no longer saw themselves. What ushered in the New Wave was the fundamental idea of leaving indoor studios behind and filming al fresco – taking to the streets with new, less cumbersome camera equipment. The cineastes of ’68 claimed a cinema that broke all the rules – Godard and his abandonment of classical filmmaking; the discovery of new actors like Jean-Paul Belmondo in Breathless and Jean-Pierre Léaud in The 400 Blows, and of their new look and lingo. These films preceded and heralded a certain spirit of ’68. It was the spirit of irruption, of shaking off the manacles of old techniques, and it was inspired by American cinema (the work of Nicholas Ray in particular) in the urgency with which it filmed the young and their preoccupations. There was a militant cinema movement that filmed workers’ movements and was part of a collective – Godard and the “Medvedkine groups”, as well as Kébadian, Marin Karmitz and the big guns of the New Wave, like Jean Rouch and his

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notably direct cinema. It revolutionised documentary-making and pretty much invented cinéma vérité – Truffaut, who sought poetic realism; Rivette, who encouraged his actors to improvise and posited a new kind of narrative rhythm; Godard, who went furthest in his search for a permanent break with the past. But we mustn’t forget Philippe Garrel or Pierre Clémenti – searching, deep in the margins, for new forms. May ’68 retains a mythic status in France, but for the last fifty years a reactionary wave has been trying to assail its spirit, holding it responsible for introducing a permissive society that was out to destroy authority and hierarchies. Nicolas Sarkozy announced that ‘We must be done with ‘68’, but conservatives have exaggerated this: ‘’68 led straight to neoliberalism’, etc. It’s the conservative right that uses these arguments to distort the essence of ’68, blaming it for a consumerist society of ‘uninhibited pleasure’.

AIR While we’re on the subject, when a cineaste like Michel Hazanavicius makes Redoubtable, parodying Godard and draining him of political discourse – and when such a film is in official competition at Cannes – we can see that the confusion is complete. There are so many books written about ’68 – so many TV programmes and archive films – but the public is massively uninterested in it. Yet in every workers’ strike and every student movement, the collective memory of May ’68 is alive and well. We wanted, through films and testimonies, to let it breathe again.

This article was translated from French. The original article can be viewed on the Scalarama website. @Cine_instimag

September 1-30, 2018

Amy Zaaiman looks back at the disruptive cinema of Agnès Varda ahead of a nationwide retrospective of her films and the general release of her latest, Faces Places, in September.

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THE CINÉCRITURE OF AGNÈS VARDA At this point in a career spanning more than six decades, 90-year-old Agnès Varda finally seems to have infiltrated more mainstream film circles. Generally accredited as the grand matriarch and most prominent female director of the French New Wave, Varda’s latest release, Faces Places, has showered her with renewed critical praise and clout in modern consciousness. The film achieved an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature at this year’s Academy Awards and made her a darling of the Internet when, in lieu of her physical presence, she peppered the red carpet with cardboard cutouts of herself – with which fellow nominees such as Meryl Streep and Greta Gerwig posed. At Cannes, Varda and Cate Blanchett led a symbolic number of 82 women from the industry in protest of the Festival’s longstanding lack of representation of women. (82 was the number of films directed by women at this year’s Festival, compared to the 1,645 directed by men.) In the wake of Harvey Weinstein’s abuses of power and the #MeToo movement, Varda’s increased visibility comes at a moment in cinematic culture where the role of women as filmmakers, and as agents of change and subversion, feels more pivotal than ever. Throughout her expansive career, she has consistently contributed to feminist film discourse and the voicing of female concerns. She has always embraced the feminine aspects of her person rather than disavowing or feeling limited by them. As an auteur, her oeuvre is a testament to her social positioning and political stance. These traits permeate her work and are evident in her features and short films, such as the character study of Mona in Vagabond and the overtly didactic Women Reply: Our Bodies, Our Sex. She acknowledged her 1965 film Le Bonheur to be a ‘woman’s film’, stating: ‘Obviously: I’m a woman’. Varda’s arguably most famous film, Cléo from 5 to 7, unpicks the performance of gender and provides a morbidly subjective take on two hours in the life of a singer in crisis. Instead of framing women as objects of desire, Varda transgresses traditional gender roles through her focus on specifically feminine experience. It would be a gross oversight, however, to define her vast and varied career as simply a vehicle for female empowerment. Subjects of her documentaries include the Black Panthers (Black Panthers), rural inhabitants (Daguerréotypes) and muralists in Los Angeles (Mur Murs). Her most recent film, Faces Places, as well as 2000’s The Gleaners and I, zero in on people existing on the fringes of society – those frequently disregarded or forgotten. Varda tends to lean towards intimate character portraits that reveal subtle truths about society and human nature – be it an autobiographical account (The Beaches of Agnès), the retelling of her late husband Jacques Demy’s childhood (Jacquot de Nantes) or the docudrama revolving around actress Jane Birkin (Jane B. par Agnès Varda). Her filmography exposes an interest in

depicting what is usually heralded as unimportant or contentious by prevailing thought structures, while always embodying her signature blend of intellectual analysis and whimsy. Apart from offering exposure to the disenfranchised, Varda disrupts the formalist methods by which these individuals are usually portrayed. Her films employ innovative ways of reimagining conventional modes of movie magic. An example of this is her first feature, 1955’s La Pointe Courte. Inspired by William Faulkner’s Wild Palms, Varda created a split narrative in which one strand follows a couple on the brink of demise and the other chronicles the mundane happenings of a fishing village. These two stories, completely unrelated, are woven together through alternating scenes in an effort to establish an underlying ethos and to depict that which transcends straightforward communication. Varda’s tenets when addressing the filmmaking process are something she collectively describes as ‘cinécriture’, or ‘cinematic writing’ – expression through visual, filmic language. It is the formation of new meanings via aestheticism, editing, aural textures, narrative structures and temporalities. The implications of her cinematic writing result in blurring and ambiguous collisions. She provides no instructive or obvious conclusions: her work is contingent upon the active participation of viewers in determining their own interpretations. By giving voice to marginalised characters, as well as being a woman, her work has received little financial reward over the years and, unlike her male counterparts, is not nearly as well-known as that of the Godards and Truffauts of this world. However, Varda’s latest release, as well as the revival of her older work, has put her squarely in front of contemporary audiences. She is now included in the currency of ‘wokeness’. Her filmography is opening up to a whole new generation and these reverberations cannot be underestimated. The lack of simplistic denouements in her films reveal a poignancy in contemporary society that is characterised by hues of grey. In an era when binary terms are dangerous and can lead to the spread of hatred, Varda’s narratives, devoid of black and white, remain vital in understanding life’s complexities.

Scalarama 2018 celebrates Agnès Varda in partnership with Curzon Artificial Eye’s ‘Gleaning Truths’ retrospective: a presentation of eight of her featurelength fiction and documentary films in a nationwide tour. For more information, visit agnesvarda.co.uk. @amy_zaaiman

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Jackson Caines looks at how four very different films saw and heard the counterculture.

1968: WHEN MUSIC AND CINEMA COLLIDE

September 1-30, 2018

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Jackson Caines looks at how four very different films saw and heard the counterculture.

Cinemagoers wishing to see a musical in 1968 had a choice; they could look backwards, to the big-budget affairs produced in the dying gasp of the traditional musical’s golden age, or they could peek forwards to something else entirely. This was the year of Funny Girl, of Oliver! and of Fred Astaire in his last musical role as the lead in Francis Ford Coppola’s Irish-American fantasy Finian’s Rainbow. But it was also a year of transition, and these musicals of the classic style competed with radical new explorations of the relationship between music and the moving image. Pre-eminent among these was Yellow Submarine, currently back in selected UK cinemas. The third Beatles film, directed by Canadian-born animator George Dunning, it remains something of a one-off: a psychedelic, animated pop musical comedy adventure, adored by both critics and audiences of all ages. And in 1968, it boldly charted new territory for the movie musical. The featured Beatles songs provide the soundtrack for unforgettable, dreamlike sequences that expand the very concept of a musical “number” – the desaturated tableaux of urban isolation that accompany ‘Eleanor Rigby’, a cartoon John Lennon singing ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ in a dizzyingly colourful landscape of mountainous human heads. The ambitious, eclectic visuals are grounded by a script that retains the unpretentious charm of the Beatles characters themselves (in this case voiced by actors), familiar to audiences from previous outings A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and Help! (1965). Yellow Submarine was the most enduring example of the marriage of pop and cinema in 1968 – but it was far from the only one. The year produced a handful of curiosities, cult classics and misfires that saw filmmakers and musicians collaborating in an atmosphere of experimentation and provocation. Across the pond, TV sensations the Monkees starred in their first and only feature film. Co-written by Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson, Head ruthlessly deconstructed the Monkees’ commercial status as a “manufactured” pop group. The TV show’s opening theme is even rewritten to indicate the deeply satirical tone of what is to follow: ‘Hey, hey, we are the Monkees / You know we love to please / A manufactured image / With no philosophies.’ Maligned by critics and rejected by fans on its release, it was not until the 1980s that the film resurfaced to become a cult classic. Head plays today like something of a countercultural bingo, a perfect 1968 time capsule. All the preoccupations are there: Eastern philosophies, psychedelic visuals (including enthusiastic use of the expensive solarisation process), critiques of war and consumerism, and lots of groovy gear. A plot is conspicuous by its absence, but we do get memorable episodes like Micky Dolenz beating up a Coke vending machine in the middle of the desert. And we get a

selection of songs that hold up well, especially the hazy Goffin-King theme ‘Porpoise Song’ and the Eastern-tinged ‘Can You Dig It?’. If Head perfectly captures 1968’s playful side, Jean-Luc Godard’s Sympathy for the Devil testifies to the uncompromising seriousness that characterised some of the period’s self-declared revolutionaries. Godard was by now deep into his Maoist phase, convinced that the May 1968 events in Paris necessitated a totally new approach to filmmaking, a clean break from previous aesthetic norms tainted by their associations with capitalism and colonialism. His desire, he told the Sunday Times, was to make a film ‘as simple as possible, almost like an amateur film’. In place of traditional editing, the length of shots would be determined by the Kodak stock. The film’s original title, One Plus One, was an indication of its fragmentary nature – one half of an equation, no ‘equals two’, nothing reassuring for an audience to fall back on. As for the fragments, the principal one consists of (excellent) footage of the Rolling Stones in the studio rehearsing ‘Sympathy for the Devil’. The other unrelated strands include shots of Black Panther militants hanging around a junkyard and a young woman, Eve Democracy (Mia Wiazemsky), answering interviewers’ increasingly elaborate questions with either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. As if that were not defiantly uncommercial enough, Godard’s original version did not even provide viewers with the satisfaction of hearing the titular Stones track in its entirety. A conflict with the producers ensued and, in an extraordinary resolution, Godard’s One Plus One and the producers’ cut, Sympathy for the Devil, were screened on alternate days when the film had its Paris release in May 1969. Sympathy for the Devil is best seen today as a highly contemporary piece, a document of Godard’s fevered exploration of what it means to be a revolutionary filmmaker. Esoteric and obscure, it failed to provide a lasting template for a synthesis of music and film. More promising in this respect was the feature documentary Monterey Pop, whose director, D. A. Pennebaker, was already well known for his Bob Dylan tour film Dont Look Back (1967). Monterey Pop captures an array of musicians at the height of their powers playing at the Monterey Pop Festival in the summer of 1967 – and if any music festival was worth documenting for posterity, Pennebaker could have done worse than picking one that showcased the likes of Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Janis Joplin and Otis Redding. The strength of Monterey Pop lies not only in its hypnotic, lengthy takes of important performances, but in its evocation of the festival’s spirit. So we are treated not only to the Mamas & the Papas playing ‘California Dreamin’’ but to the young fan who breathlessly predicts that the festival will be ‘like Christmas and Easter and New Year’s and

your birthday all together’. Or the girl who is overjoyed to have travelled from out of town for the privilege of wiping down the plastic fold-up seats between sets. These moments offer a touching dose of humanity to contrast with the awe-inspiring demi-gods on stage. Did Monterey Pop gesture towards a new realm of possibilities for the movie musical? Renata Adler of the New York Times certainly thought so: ‘It is possible that the way to a new kind of musical – using some of the talent and energy of what is still the most lively contemporary medium – may begin with just this kind of musical performance documentary.’ The concert film would indeed become an established sub-genre, with its benchmark Woodstock (1970) just around the corner, and later entries like the Band’s The Last Waltz (1978) and Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense (1984) set to become classics by any standard. As different as they are, these films of 1968 testify to an environment in which pop music, cinema, art, politics and ideas were not only deeply intertwined but accorded a cultural centrality that today feels quite alien. Their co-existence with that year’s mainstream musicals neatly embodies the seismic changes British and American societies were undergoing – and from the revolutionary to the whimsical, from the visceral to the cerebral, the counterculture’s vitality could not be denied.

Filmmaker William Webb analyses a wellloved but oft-neglected film phenomenon: trash cinema.

Last July, middle of the week, and the cinema is packed. Almost every seat is sold for both screenings of this double bill, though some falter at the credits of the first picture and retire to the bar in favour of another pricey Icelandic ale. The crowd skews young, a majority of viewers under 30 – a holy grail for London arts venues, especially the more venerable ones like the BFI, which is where this screening is taking place. And though 35mm repertory screenings often attract a pretty neckbeardy crowd, women are making up a sizeable percentage of the audience at this event. In short, this is a smash hit screening, heavily patronised and reaching audiences usually under-served by artsier programmes. It’s because this is quite different to the usual fare at the BFI: it’s a double bill of the first two Slumber Party Massacre films, presented by independent horror programming group The Final Girls and BFI Cult programmer Michael Blyth. It’s trash – cinematic garbage filling the cinema – and the audience loves it. Trash cinema is a loose term for a few categories of film that are clumped together somewhat dismissively and in contrast to supposedly high-value art films. Some films are art and trash, like much of John Waters’s work. Some films began as trash and have been elevated to art status, like Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!. The vast majority of films in this area are exploitation films of one stripe or another: slashers, chambara, cannibals, Canucks, giallo, sci-fi, women in prison, creature features, bikers, beach parties, poliziotteschi, mondo, gonzo, monsters, striptease, softcore, nudist, nazi, pinku eiga, drag race, and so on. This is not a coherent school of cinema but a kaleidoscopic cast of cast-offs and rejects. The films are only loosely connected by a few elements: a genre approach, often a focus on bodies, erotic or violent (or both), a rejection of cinematic language norms (purposeful or accidental), and the understanding that the film is somehow aimed at an audience – an invitation to boo, holler, or just make out and ignore the damn thing. You can see why these films have found success in the cinema. There’s a jouissance for the audience member in engaging with trash films that defy expectations of form, content and taste. When Russ Meyer cuts every shot to be the length of a single blink, his decision reminds us of the artificial rules and norms imposed on cinematic language – and not because it works, but because it doesn’t. Watching and engaging with these films, especially in a space (repertory cinema) often reserved for arthouse and intellectual fare – a sort of cinematic greatest hits – is the equivalent of staying home and playing video games when your parents want you to play sports in the sunshine. There’s a tension between engaging with these films as works in a critical sense, especially in the formal space of the cinema, and the essential lack of care that went into the making of the films. In a more general sense, and far away from critical theory jargon, it’s easy to forget that trash cinema

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is simply fun. Many films under the label are outrageous, provocative and often hysterical, and so bring about great audience reactions that encourage communal and repeat viewing. This is the origin of the term “cult classic”, now often appropriated as a marketing term – the idea that a film can have such a strong appeal that a viewing involves rituals, holy texts and group worship.

It does feel like there are more and more trash screenings, stemming from rude UK beginnings at the original Scala to the expansion of event cinema, which takes nostalgic mainstream films and treats them like wallpaper and set-dressing for selling bougie food and overpriced lager in the sun. I suspect that part of the rise in appeal is a response to the increasing ease of access to films and the less communal experience of film-watching, either through a streaming platform or in a soulless multiplex. Faced with algorithmic recommendations from Netflix and its ilk, or poor choice and projection quality in the multiplex, cinemagoers embrace repertory screenings as a chance to engage with curated work in a communal environment. If individual, curated choices are the vogue, then the most idiosyncratic and hard-to-get option is the trash film, frequently out of print and always bizarre. This is not too far from the driving impulse for lots of arthouse audience members; ‘where else will I see this hitherto undiscovered Tarkovsky on the big screen?’ can be equated with ‘where else will I see this Filipino satanic horror on the big screen?’. The additional draw of trash over arthouse is its sense of fun, new and unexplored critical contexts, and the inherent irony of the screenings. Going to view trash is rejecting the formality of the arthouse space, and giving yourself over to the anarchic curation of deliberately bad work.

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in more mainstream films. It’s this lack of oversight that gifted us Pam Grier, whose first performance in The Big Bird Cage portrays drug use, lesbian relationships and sex work in a way that’s more sympathetic and complex than most other films of the time. The last paragraph might sound a little too much like ‘See, they really are art after all!’. I’m not interested in arguing anything of the sort. It’s simply worth remembering that these are films in their own right. When I watch a film, I am looking for some individual essence in the movie – some essential aspect of it, unique and impossible to reproduce. This spark is as evident in the best trash movies as it is in Bergman, Reichardt, Hsiao-hsien. Which is not to say the quality is the same – removed from budget, creative control and craft, trash is wildly inconsistent – but the recognisable vision is palpable and vibrant. Dario Argento has been rescued from the genre pile and is being transferred to the auteur category; individual moments of genius from trash cinema, like the disjointed and gloomy slashers of Lucio Fulci, the sensuous and transgressive films of Stephanie Rothman and the erotic gothic dreamscapes of Jesus Franco, are all additional candidates.

There are also more traditionally positive elements of trash cinema. Many of the films collected under this umbrella are out of print, forgotten or in poor condition. Repertory screenings of these films can invigorate scholarship around them and rediscovery of industry milestones, like the resurgence of Welcome II the Terrordome, Born in Flames and Just Another Girl on the I.R.T., debut features from women filmmakers (Ngozi Onwurah, Lizzie Borden and Leslie Harris respectively) that are uncomfortably genre-led – although perhaps not strictly trash either. That interest can in turn spur restorations and releases of these films. The resurgence of giallo is a clear and positive example, as both Arrow Films in the UK and the Alamo Drafthouse in the US have saved, restored and re-released films in this genre.

Additionally, the nature of historical production of genre and exploitation films meant that they were often ahead of representation in the mainstream. Prevailing institutions at the time were as dismissive of trash then as they are now, and would allow these filmmakers much freer rein to explore themes and content that would not have been allowed

These features don’t play well at the arthouse. Their place in canon is questionable and raises uncomfortable challenges – who did what first? Their brashness and audience-focus stand sharply at odds with the aloof reputation of the grands auteurs. Their tight links to specific contexts – like fads (beach party movies), social change (satanic panic horrors), and regional scenes (Canuxploitation et al) – mean that they require extra explanation and are difficult to fit into preconceived programmes. And, as mentioned above, these films are frequently of extremely poor quality – not exactly easy to programme next to an Ozu, or even a polished mainstream genre film. Above all else, trash reminds us that films are products of a business. They are the equivalent of sawdust, feathers, bone meal: shit created as an industrial by-product and sold quickly and cheaply for slim profits. This is unacceptable for the arthouse circuit, because – the clue’s in the name – they treat films as art.

Recently, this has begun to change. The Scala led the charge through the ’80s, modelled on the dive cinemas found in cities across the US and playing an eclectic programme of classics, new arthouse and copious trash. The Prince Charles Cinema neatly took over in the early ’90s, and, along with the Duke of York’s in Brighton and the Tyneside in Newcastle (which even screens from VHS occasionally), has embraced the screening of repertory exploitation and genre work. Their success has invited trash into the mainstream of film programming in the UK. The BFI ran a season on John Waters in 2016, and played a line-up of blaxploitation as part of its Black Star season in the same year (continued in spirit with the addition of further titles by

programmer Ashley Clark at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in New York earlier this year). Running the Cult strand at the BFI is Michael Blyth, whose successes are noted above, and whose excellent programmes terrify my wallet once a month. HOME in Manchester dedicated a season to the mondo movie earlier this year. The success and expansion of these programmes may have something to do with the copious young audiences trash attracts, or perhaps the new understanding of the aesthetic value in these films; maybe a little of both. It’s not coincidental that this change has happened as the generation of programmers who came of age with the Scala have moved into positions of power across the UK’s film institutions – such as Jane Giles, the former Scala programmer who was Head of Content at the BFI from 2008 until 2016. This uprising of film programmers is too slow to be called a revolution, but it certainly signals a bright future for trash at the cinema. As for new trash cinema, the picture is less clear; films identifying themselves as trash are usually just poorly made, missing that essential spark of inspiration, and so aren’t really worthy of the label. This makes it pretty hard to identify new trash films. Nevertheless, in a decade or so, chances are we’ll look back at now and identify trash classics amongst current releases, just as a new generation of programmers are finding their favourites in the films of the early noughties – like the Day-glo nightmares of the Email My Heart film club (named after the iconic Britney song). One potential candidate is the mockbuster, a long-standing tradition of B-movies imitating A-pictures that’s been turned into a fine art by American film production company The Asylum and weaponised through VoD and DVDs at supermarket checkouts. Transmorphers is one infamous example; sometimes they’re rushed to release mere days before their more illustrious inspirations (I’m looking at you, Snakes on a Train).

Back in NFT3 and deep into Slumber Party Massacre II, an extended dream sequence (maybe; it’s too incoherent to tell) sees a slasher using an electric guitar/ drill hybrid to slaughter teenagers during a musical number. In NFT1, a documentary on David Lynch is playing, and in NFT2, a Hitchcock rerun. We are in the same building, but worlds apart and deep in the gutter – and we love it.

September 1-30, 2018

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DANTE’S TOWERING INFERNO Before he started his career cutting trailers for Roger Corman, Joe Dante hosted the 7.5-hour All Night Once in a Lifetime Atomic Movie Orgy. An ever-evolving edit, it was a communal experience – a mind-bending predecessor to the modern mash-up with no definitive version. Matchbox Cineclub programmer Sean Welsh charts the evolution of The Movie Orgy through five key dates.

September 1-30, 2018

THE STRANGE CASE OF ‘TURKISH STAR WARS’ Iain Robert Smith is one of the many Bothans who died to bring us this information about The Man Who Saves the World, a film better known as ‘Turkish Star Wars’.

9 October 1965, Playboy Theater, Chicago The first screening of An Evening with Batman and Robin, one of two key inspirations for The Movie Orgy. The other was Susan Sontag’s ‘Notes on “Camp”’ (1964), which inspired the repackaging of the 1943 Batman serial as a single 4.5-hour programme. Audiences laughed at its phony climaxes and marveled at its blatant xenophobia, and it began touring college towns. When Dante caught it in Philadelphia, he was struck by the camaraderie of the crowd, who ‘came out into the lobby as if they’d just gotten off a sinking ship.’ Early 1966, Philadelphia College of Art, Philadelphia Inspired, Dante decided to host his own Camp Movie Night. The exact date is lost to history, but Dante and collaborator Jon Davison rented the only complete serial available on 16mm in Philadelphia, The Phantom Creeps (1939). They stretched it to seven hours with serials, clips, ads, industrial films and cartoons from their 16mm collections. Its success meant several follow-ups, each a step towards what would shortly become The Movie Orgy. 8 March 1970, Fillmore East, New York 1970 was peak Movie Orgy for the pair, who employed dueling projectors. Davison’s would show various features – in lieu of new serials – and Dante’s would interject, drawing on his panoply of 16mm weirdness. They took their cues

from the audience, so no two screenings were alike. Press coverage of the Fillmore Orgy drew the attention of Schlitz Beer, who sponsored Orgies to tour colleges for years. But when the new material the Orgy drew upon to keep it alive began itself to be infected with self-referential camp, it was time to call it a day. 22 April 2008, New Beverley Cinema, Los Angeles The grand finale of Dante’s Inferno, a two-week retrospective, was attended by scores of curious film fans. Dante enjoined the crowd to move about, go outside, have a smoke, grab a pizza and wander back in. The Movie Orgy was always intended as a movie to be walked out on. But the director was curious to see if it would play – have any relevance – after years in his vault. It brought the house down. 9 September 2018, The Old Hairdresser’s, Glasgow We’re screening the digital version Dante made for the New Beverley (not the 90-minute “UK cut” previously screened in London). It’s 4.5 hours long, the official Movie Orgy – ‘distilled, recaptured and re-curated’, according to archivist David Neary. It’s not the full, wild 16mm experience, of course, but there’s also no Blu-ray forthcoming. ‘It’s more like a concert in a way,’ Dante says. ‘It’s something that you really have to be there for.’

I never thought that this would ever happen. For many years, the notorious ‘Turkish Star Wars’ circulated only in grainy, low-resolution bootleg copies and was a legend more often talked about than actually seen. After many years of searching, however, a beaten-up 35mm print of the film was finally discovered in 2016, and now a 2K digital scan has been made so that audiences can once again view the film on the big screen – the way it was originally intended. The film was produced at the tail-end of a period in Turkish cinema when filmmakers were remaking significant numbers of Hollywood films and paying little heed to international copyright law. These ranged from near shot-forshot remakes such as Seytan (Metin Erksan, 1974), an Islamic reworking of The Exorcist, through to films that mixed characters from various franchises, such as Üç Dev Adam (T. Fikret Uçak, 1973) – in which Captain America teams up with the Mexican wrestler Santo to do battle with Spider-Man. As incredible as those films were, however, the most notorious film from this period was Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (1982). This is because director Çetin Inanç didn’t simply recreate the plot or borrow the characters from a Hollywood film, but actually took special effects sequences directly from Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977) and edited them into his own film. This allowed him to depict stars Cüneyt Arkın and Aytekin Akkaya flying through outer space without having anything like a Hollywood special effects budget at his disposal. Not content with simply using borrowed footage, Inanç even utilised music recorded surreptitiously from the soundtracks of Raiders of the Lost Ark

(Steven Spielberg, 1981), Flash Gordon (Mike Hodges, 1980) and Battlestar Galactica (1978-’79). ‘I’m absolutely delighted,’ says film historian Ed Glaser, an American who has been instrumental in bringing ‘Turkish Star Wars’ to the UK. ‘My goal in rescuing and restoring the print has always been to get it in front of the film’s many fans. Legal and logistical hurdles have made that a difficult process, so I’m extremely grateful for the efforts of everyone involved to make this exciting UK tour possible.’ Sean Welsh, who works at independent cult-film exhibitor Matchbox Cineclub, adds: ‘Most people know “Turkish Star Wars” from terribly subtitled clips drawn from fourth-generation VHS dubs. That version was one of the first films Matchbox Cineclub screened, and Turkish remakesploitation one of the first topics I wrote about seriously, because I wanted to know just what the fuck was going on with these films. It makes me very happy that our curiosity about them has brought us to a point where we can share the best possible version of “Turkish Star Wars” and tell people the incredible story behind it.’ Because of the obvious rights issues around the film, there are currently no plans for a home DVD/Blu-Ray release – this Scalarama tour is the only way to see this new 2K version of ‘Turkish Star Wars’. So pick up tickets before they sell out!

Restored in 2K resolution, The Man Who Saves the World will be touring the country in September, courtesy of Remakesploitation Film Club and Matchbox Cineclub.

September 1-30, 2018

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BEHIND THE SCREEN

William Fowler and Vic Pratt discuss writing and publishing on cult and marginalised cinema.

Accidents will happen, and it was serendipitous indeed that we came together with a shared interest in the untold story of British film and television culture. ‘The Flipside’ was a regular cinema strand that we came up with and programmed from 2006 to 2013 at BFI Southbank, London, that was designed to showcase strange, unusual and unexpected film and television. It developed into a DVD and Blu-ray brand, BFI Flipside, which continues to run to this day. Both began with one particular film – a film that, years previously and entirely independently of each other, we both longed to see, without ever seriously thinking that we would: Arnold Miller and Stanley Long’s Primitive London (1965). It was apparently a British ‘mondo’ film: a homegrown example of a strange and briefly popular genre of pseudodocumentary emanating from Italy in the early 1960s, which generally fused a bewildering assortment of documentary bits and pieces with blood and guts and teasing titillation (censors permitting), usually with dry and somewhat sanctimonious voice-over commentary. Will had spotted it amidst the lurid video sleeves depicted in that seminal work on sleazy VHS releases, edited by Marc Morris and Nigel Wingrove, The Art of the Nasty. The book’s brief synopsis noted that it had been made by the independent production company Tigon, and that it had boasted interviews with mods and rockers. Shot on the cusp of the Swinging London scene in 1965, it had appeared on home video in the early 1980s before promptly disappearing again. Vic had never seen the sleeve, but had seen an article about it in John Hamilton’s Beasts in the Cellar, a book about the history of Tigon films, and had read a review of it in that august cinematic journal of record, The Monthly Film Bulletin. Though dismissed by that periodical in no uncertain terms, it was hard to believe that any film featuring hair transplants, that leopard girl on the VHS front cover, and the truth about roast chickens could be unworthy of a viewer’s time and attention. What was this film actually like? And, more importantly, how would we ever see it? This film and umpteen more seemed to have slipped, entirely unmourned, from

the radar. It was hardly at the top of the list for cinematheque reappraisals, and the pre-2000 internet revealed little – in those early days of the information super-highway it seemed to be more about figuring out how to send an email and checking if your favourite band had a webpage yet.

In the alternative film and television power-network that constitutes the jerry-built scenario for our forthcoming book The Bodies Beneath, Primitive London might be the celluloid Stonehenge to which all lead. Like those stones you might consider it a monstrous monolith to a purpose that seems at first glance forgotten. The films and programmes we discuss have not always been dismissed; many have in fact fallen into obscurity, or become lost amidst the whirl of an ever-expanding visual culture that increasingly blurs the lines between new and old, yet which is still forever reliant on a means of access, delivery and visibility. Unless the object under discussion is available for all to see, and a sign post erected to lead you to it, how can it be found? Primitive London disappeared after its first run – primarily not because of adverse critique but because it had served its supposedly ephemeral function

as sensational near-newsreel and was thus quickly “out of date”. Like so many independent, non-canonical films it has not been looked after, logged, catalogued or its memory maintained and represented as more critically valued titles have. This is not to suggest that the films in the critically regarded canon aren’t valuable; it is merely to suggest that their continued preponderance as the only truly valid examples of British filmmaking might tend to obscure the huge heap beneath. Cinema classics – regularly lavished with money, attention, and, holiest of all holies, restoration – will always have the upper hand. Of course, this can create another kind of aura, a decidedly unholy one: the outsider status of the forgotten, forbidden or neglected, key aspects of what have become known as cult films. But what if the film doesn’t lend itself to a singalong as readily as The Rocky Horror Picture Show? Some “cult” films lose their edge when seen in the zingy 4K digital scan of daylight, but, for the most part, a film seen in its intended cut and correct ratio – not panned and scanned, or squashed for TV broadcast – is a significantly improved experience. Another example at random: Lucio Fulci’s UK-shot The Black Cat (1981). A minor piece in the scheme of things, admittedly, it nonetheless has much to commend it; its reworking of the Poe prototype boasts such glories as a splendid performance by the muchmissed Patrick Magee. Maligned and chopped about in the past, this one fell through the cracks of our critical consciousness. But look what a bit of love and attention can do: recent years have seen it sharply reissued and represented on Blu-ray. Suddenly, once you can see it properly at last, it seems miles more significant. Thus revitalised, even filmic footnotes like this, and others that could even be footnotes to the footnotes, might start to embed themselves within a newly conceived film history, or – dare we suggest? – an all-embracing canon. Think of it. The handful of remaining homeentertainment labels presiding over a smaller but still lively market are now presenting a far wider range of films in a wider range of wonderful ways than

anyone would ever have dreamed possible back in the days of VHS – let alone back in the days when you had to get the 9.5mm projector out of the loft and up and running in order to show your handful of silent Betty Boop reels. And this new era’s attention to those films that have been historically less lauded has also had its effect on what would be called a “cult” movie. Have the original cult films (as declared in the 1980s) – your Withnail and I (1987), your Rocky Horror (1975), your Wicker Man (1973) – almost become a new strand of the mainstream canon? And nowadays, in marketing terms, does “cult” just signify a genre film?

Don’t miss ‘Behind the Screen: Writing and Publishing on Cult and Marginalised Cinema’ at the Horse Hospital, London on Friday 28 September. William Fowler & Vic Pratt (The Flipside), Jane Giles (author, Scala Cinema 1978-1993), Mark Pilkington (Strange Attractor Press) and Virginie Sélavy (Electric Sheep) discuss writing and publishing on cult and marginalised cinema in an age of access and plenty. With Psychotronic short films and music. The Bodies Beneath: The Flipside of British Film and TV, by William Fowler and Vic Pratt, is published by Strange Attractor Press in late 2018. @vic_pratt

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HIDDEN PIONEERS

CINEMA: LA VÉRITÉ?

Who really directed the first film ever made? Why did it take decades for a Hollywood legend who developed wireless technology to be recognised for her achievements? Neil Hepburn examines two stories that have been in the shadows for too long.

Andrew Northrop, Catriona Mahmoud and Matt Turner explore the complexities and manifold ways of exploring political action through documentaries.

In the 1870s, Eadweard Muybridge made photographic images of a galloping horse. A decade later Thomas Edison wowed audiences by projecting short demonstrations of moving pictures. George Méliès looked further, taking us to the moon in 1902. The dawn of the moving image is associated with seminal events involving genius men.

What one person would call a revolution, another may call a riot. Political action is a difficult thing to depict, but film perhaps holds the power to do so more effectively than other media. Just as there are a number of famous films from decades past that dealt with uprisings as they unfolded, there are contemporary examples that take current and critical viewpoints. These examples are respectful of what has come before, often incorporating established films into their DNA while maintaining a critical distance that may not have been voiced in the earlier films due to the immediacy of the action.

Enter Alice Guy-Blaché. Inspired by a Victorian-era folk tale, Guy-Blaché’s La Fée aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy) was, in 1896, probably the very first narrative film. It was also the first film directed by a woman, the first film to use a scripted scenario and the longest film ever made at that time (weighing in at a hefty 58 seconds). Guy-Blaché was a cinematic trailblazer who went on to burst open the possibilities of visual storytelling across over a thousand films. Through some quirk of late 19th-century patriarchal society, a woman was able to make this indomitable impression on both a technological and artistic level. But despite her myriad achievements, Guy-Blaché is not, for most, synonymous with film history. In the 1940s, her achievements were so significantly forgotten that Guy-Blaché herself began compiling lengthy lists of the films she’d made in order to pursue credit, due recognition and ownership.

Alexandra Dean’s 2018 documentary Bombshell: the Hedy Lamarr Story reveals the two stories behind the icon. One is the tale of a complex, resourceful and highly intelligent Austrian immigrant who became an international superstar. The other is the story of an international superstar obsessed by invention: someone who spent long days in front of cameras and studio lights, and set-up mini labs in her trailer by night. What lay beneath her glamorous image was not only a person making a vast contribution to technological progress, but someone who was unjustly erased from the history books.

A recent example, Donal Foreman’s The Image You Missed (2018), examines the Troubles in Northern Ireland from a particularly personal perspective. Foreman stages a dialogue between two filmmakers, himself and his father, Arthur MacCaig, whose film about the same subject, The Patriot Game (1978), is used throughout. MacCaig’s film is a searing, striking example of partisan filmmaking, made within the midst of an uprising and wholeheartedly engaged in the struggle. But Foreman, with the benefit of hindsight, takes a position of much greater uncertainty, questioning his own political stances as well as his relationships – with filmmaking, with his country and with a father he hardly knew.

Women like Guy-Blaché and Lamarr may have been sidelined, but cinema itself can shine a light on stories like theirs. Filmmakers documenting new perspectives on history and exhibitors screening culturally significant works play key roles. Guy-Blaché and Lamarr are visible again this September, in screenings that make an important contribution to redressing the historic gender imbalance that consigned their achievements to the sidelines.

ATLAS Arts film programme ScreenIt presents the films of pioneering creative women on the Isle of Skye this September: Alice Guy-Blaché’s La Fée aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy), Celine Duval’s L’Edifice Ephemere, Akosua Adoma Owusu’s Mahogany Too and Alexandra Dean’s Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story. Dunvegan Castle, Isle of Skye, Wednesday 5 September, 7pm. One counterpart to the story of Alice Guy-Blaché is that of Hedy Lamarr. By the 1940s, the industry Guy-Blaché helped shape had rapidly become a global entertainment phenomenon, and was ruled by the Hollywood studio system. Marketed as ‘the most beautiful woman in the world’, Hedy Lamarr had a far more interesting life than most of the characters she was assigned by MGM. But she came to be celebrated for her striking physical appearance, and not for the remarkable scientific discoveries she made.

@NeilHepburn1

Equally autobiographical is Neary Adeline Hay’s Angkar (2018), in which she and her father return to his home in Cambodia – a detention village in which countless individuals died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge – to be reunited with lost friends, past ghosts and former persecutors alike. Angkar, like The Image You Missed, demonstrates how uprisings can be public, private or both. Often there can be a collective coming-together or a personal overcoming that doesn’t arise at the time of struggle, requiring filmmakers to wait until the right circumstances, materials or formal techniques can arise.

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Documentaries concerning uprisings need not be immediate either, and activism is just as embroiled in uprisings after the fact as it is before, as demonstrated in Kazuo Hara’s The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (1987). The film follows Okuzaki Kenzõ in his quest to confront crimes committed by Japanese soldiers during World War II, and see that Emperor Hirohito – the man he deems responsible – face justice. Hara’s recent film Sennan Asbestos Disaster (2017) similarly features outsiders rising up against the repressive forces of society and state, forging their own freedoms. Of course, there are still examples that utilise the immediacy of situations. Dieudo Hamadi’s vital and direct documentary Kinshasa Makambo (2018) follows demonstrations held against Joseph Kabila, President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, by young citizens of that nation; Beata Bubenec’s Flight of a Bullet (2017) captures shocking scenes from within war-torn Eastern Ukraine in a single, unpredictable, unbroken take. Håvard Bustnes’ Golden Dawn Girls (2017) shows a different kind of uprising, focusing on the female members of Greece’s main far-right party as they replace the group’s male-driven leadership following several arrests. The proximity to recent and controversial political events in Greece creates an uncomfortably urgent viewing experience. These works, which tackle uprisings from a variety of angles, convey the complexity of doing a political subject justice – and, through their manifold use of different formal techniques, showcase the ingenuity of so many political documentarians around the world.

All documentaries mentioned above, and many others besides, are being shown at this year’s Open City Documentary Festival in London in September. @OpenCityDocs

September 1-30, 2018

Catriona Mahmoud, Ella Penfold and Josh Andrews explore cinema’s capacity for capturing and shaping collective local memory.

The ethnic breakdown of London, home to over eight million residents, is as diverse as it is widespread. So how do we maintain local cultural identity in such a globalised environment? Screen25 is a community cinema in the heart of South Norwood, a district of Croydon that has long been home to a dense multicultural population. The cinema was established in 2015 as a response to the area being devoid of independent and cult screenings. It has grown into a volunteer-run community hub that partners with various other independent organisations that reflect the area’s demographics as well as its need to remember its own cultural heritage. The cinema continues to develop into a reflection of this part of South London’s varied ethnic, cultural and social background. Screen25 has evolved from being an escapist opportunity to see arthouse film on your doorstep, to its current model of frequent celebrations of black heritage, such as mainstream flicks like Black Panther (2018) and cult classics like this August’s free outdoor screening of Jamaica’s first feature film, The Harder They Come (1972). Screen25 strives to represent a wide range of different genres, communities and cultures on the big screen (LGBTQ, Korean and Middle Eastern to name a few), and has seen a particular public demand for films reflecting Afro-Caribbean heritage, racial issues and black culture relevant to the area. This has meant that the cinema has grown into a cultural destination that has a particular emphasis on celebrating the diversity that is South London.

These screening events often include the contribution of a local caterer or restaurant (luckily, the area is brimming with fantastic sources of Jamaican cuisine), as well as an introduction by relevant members of the community and a Q&A panel afterwards. Dialogues like these preserve the collective memory of culture and are infused with the heart and soul of these personal stories. Community cinema has an opportunity to serve as a poignant commemoration of an area’s heritage, as told by its residents, therefore conserving and expanding our collective memory. With this year’s Windrush scandal revealing itself to be at the forefront of the UK’s easily contestable approach to immigration, it’s important that

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CINEMA AND COLLECTIVE MEMORY communities are brought together and given the chance to support one another. Through the nurturing of collective memory, new generations and previously unaware community members can learn of previous generations’ struggles to ensure they aren’t forgotten. Events like Screen25’s showings of Get Out (2017), Moonlight (2016), I Am Not Your Negro (2016) and Zarafa (2012) are essential in urban metropolises like London, where the spread of gentrification poses a threat to diasporic groups. These groups often seek out and settle in areas that reflect their origins, and this unintentionally creates a space for collective memory to be celebrated in every community. The cycle of being pushed out and dispersed in favour of higher-paying residents feels like an intimidation tactic that runs the risk of eroding the area’s identity. The growing number of independent cinemas in London and across the UK is testament to the recognition of a need for preservation in urban community spaces that are being dissipated. Through the screening of these films, Screen25 is also highlighting filmmakers from diverse backgrounds writing their own narratives and sharing their own personal experiences, acting as a catalyst for those in our own community to embrace its cultural heritage. Cinema persists in its role of sparking conversation and discourse around impactful and sometimes uncomfortable topics. Film exhibition today is still being explored and tested as a site of memory, and it’s something that is being steered by communities wishing to come together and memorialise their cultural history. These cinemas are founded and run by the community in the first place; teams of volunteers have been known to help physically build a cinema from scratch (Deptford Cinema), save them from closure (the David Lean Cinema in Croydon) or crowdfund and garner support from displacement due to increased space hiring costs (Screen25). Cinemas like

these survive on the work of their own particular community and have overcome hurdles through the persistence of a community that chooses to preserve its own cultural heritage, ultimately creating a space that encourages the sharing of their own collective memories.

The 50th anniversary of ’68 sees plenty of opportunity for independent cinemas to create spaces for collective memory recognition. Screen25’s screening of Danny Brown and Göran Olsson’s 2011 found footage documentary The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 will include a discussion around the lesser-known British Black Panthers. This is a necessary event for audience members who are not aware of South London’s contributions to the 1968 civil rights movement, as well as for those who may be aware but haven’t had a space in which to contribute their own memories. Community cinema spaces like this are essential to the preservation of collective remembrance, and their

growing support through organisations such as the Independent Cinema Office, Cinema For All and the BFI Film Audience Network needs to be maintained as much as the community around them.

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 will be screened at Screen25 on 12 September. @screen25cinema

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POWER TO THE PEOPLE

To my mind, setting up a community cinema is a form of grassroots activism. After all, film has been used as a propaganda tool since The Battle of the Somme film in 1916 and more widely since 1939. As a nationwide movement, can we harness the power of a more diverse cinema to highlight social issues of inequality, injustice, racism, and so on? We’re in an interesting position: often operating out of town halls, the very epitome of provincial establishment, we challenge the stereotypes and mediocrity prevalent in much commercial cinema, tell stories that push people way out of their usual worlds, make calls for action, connect filmmakers and consumers, and provide affordable entertainment in a safe, friendly space. It’s powerful stuff, as befits the life-changing impact of great cinema, and it happens in plain sight all over the UK, every week. ‘Setting up your own cinema space is a radical act,’ says Jaq Chell from Cinema For All. ‘Whether it’s a reaction to a lack of cinema access where you live, or response to expensive tickets, or desire to share with your community different stories and experiences, DIY cinema is all about empowerment.’ If you’re a community cinema organiser and/or programmer and you’ve screened I, Daniel Blake to raise money and awareness about poverty and exclusion, or Moonlight or God’s Own Country to challenge racism and homophobia, or planned a festival of women filmmakers’ work, or funded free screenings for homeless people, then you are an activist. I, Daniel Blake created a massive buzz in 2016-17 in various communities, including community cinemas. Recognising that the very people the film was about – those caught within the benefit system – were unlikely to be able to afford to see it, in 2016 eOne made it available for 500 free community screenings to health groups, food banks, trade unions, local political parties and many other groups involved in tackling hardship and isolation. Even in the most conservative areas, I, Daniel Blake raised awareness and created action around poverty. Where we operate is bound to affect how openly radical we can be. In large cities with more diverse populations and perhaps a university, it might be easier to be focused (on LGBTQ+ rights, for example) than in a rural location or market town that skews more conservative. Richard Hall from Lincoln Film Society says, ‘We screen a wide variety of high-quality, non-mainstream films to an enthusiastic audience, but I was recently in conversation with someone setting up a community cinema in a village nearby. When I suggested programming Moonlight the idea was dismissed: “No-one would come to see it,” I was told firmly. Lincoln might be a city with two universities and a diverse and growing population, but the area and its surroundings have very conservative attitudes. Encouraging too much change too soon won’t work.’

So it’s a constant balancing act. Community cinemas frequently show that balanced programming of quality films helps build trust with audience members and introduces them to a kind of cinema they didn’t know they would love, which is certainly what I find at Screen St Ives near Cambridge. Perhaps we sometimes underestimate people’s appetite for diversity on screen. The audience, hopefully, comes to trust our programming choices, and we need to trust that they will usually embrace those new stories.

But it’s not easy. Whether you have disputes within your committee, struggle to fill seats, cope with an unreliable venue, or can’t get funding – how do we do it? It’s fair to say that context is everything: introduce the film, make the audience feel they know something about the film (they usually do), and start a conversation afterwards. Screen St Ives has two screens: one seats over 120, the other seats 45. The atmosphere and intimacy of the smaller screen encourages people to stay to talk about the film (once the raffle has been decided!). All sorts of enlightening stories have emerged about the locations, language, politics and history of a particular film from people who perhaps haven’t made those connections before. It’s a further development of the shared experiences that make cinemagoing so special. We in the community cinema movement can arguably be more radical than larger institutions. While we obviously can’t afford to run at a loss, most of us are not obligated to shareholders or CEOs. So how do some community cinemas achieve their vision and keep people coming back for more? Regarding the local context in which cinemas operate, Robert Robinson likes to think that at the Picturehouse in Ballyclare (Northern Ireland is a region with a growing community cinema landscape) they’re ‘just a wee bit subversive and political’. He also wonders what programming says about the type of people who run community cinemas, just as much as (or more than) it says about the audience they’re trying to attract. Robert recognises that it’s the shared experiences explored in very different film cultures that resonate with audiences. Common themes in Asian cinema, such as LGBTQ rights, life in rural areas and suicide among farmers, are also concerns in Northern Ireland. Close to the often contentious annual Orange Order marches in July last year, the cinema programmed A United Kingdom – a pertinent and positive way to address traditionally held ideas about mixed marriages and class distinctions in Northern Ireland. Chester Film Society balances provocation with pleasure: ‘We’re proud of our diverse programme of contemporary world cinema as well as non-mainstream English language films’, says Rachel Cross. ‘We actively eschew the films that would ordinarily appeal to a typical white, middle-aged, middle-class audience – although that is the majority of our membership! Maybe we also seek

to be mildly subversive, pushing the boundaries of what our audiences might accept. But it is always a balancing act and we don’t want to alienate people. We’ve also started screening more LGBTQ content. In the coming season of 18 films we have A Fantastic Woman, Thelma and Call Me By Your Name. We also include at least one “Marmite Movie” that will provoke a polarised reaction; we expect that of The Square this season. Seeing the spread of reaction scores for these films is more satisfying than getting consistent high scores. But often, films produce an unexpected reaction such as Personal Shopper and Under the Skin, which otherwise attracted critical acclaim. Our constitution does not allow us to ‘espouse the cause of any political party’, but we often show films with social observations that are more progressive such as I, Daniel Blake and I Am Not Your Negro. We had a comment recently that the Italian migrant crisis documentary Fire at Sea – made with no comment or narration – was “a bit political”. Having said all that, what are we showing at Christmas? Paddington 2, probably the best British film of 2017!’ The Birmingham-based Rico JohnsonSinclair set up CineQ in 2017 ‘because it needed to exist. As a queer person of colour, when nobody is showing films that reflect your experience, you have no choice but to seek out other avenues in a city without a threescreen independent cinema, as there is in Nottingham or Sheffield. We focus on the perspective of Queer People of Colour, programming international and British independent queer film and New Queer Cinema. We host exercises, talks and celebrations after screenings as a way of trying to dismantle the issues we face internally and externally. Our audience tends to be around 36% people of colour and 55% heterosexual men and women who want to better understand the queer community. The rest are members of the LGBTQ+ community that have come to see themselves reflected on the big screen. Some belong to more than one group. Our programme challenges stereotypes, just as New Queer Cinema was created to challenge the stereotypes imposed on us by the Gay Liberation Front. We’re trying to show that queer stories are just as varied as those in heteronormative film. We’re sick of stories about sordid affairs and HIV. We also support local and home-grown talent, and expand the definition of film exhibition by including immersive elements, to force progression in an industry that has remained stagnant for too long.’ The multi-award-winning Leigh Film Society near Wigan is renowned for its dynamic community outreach projects, including film events in an old mining area rich in history but with many economically and socially deprived communities. Elizabeth Costello explains: ‘As well as programming to appeal to everyone, we support with small donations other grassroots groups. All proceeds from screenings are given to the campaign or cause we are supporting. For example, Action 4 Alfie: Alfie, a local boy, was diagnosed with

September 1-30, 2018

Self-confessed community cinema geek Amanda Randall makes the case for community cinemas as a space for radical action, and explores some illustrative case studies.

a life-changing disease and his family asked if we could help them fundraise by screening Alfie’s favourite film, Toy Story, which we did willingly in July. In other projects we address social isolation through two free monthly afternoon classic cinema clubs that are very busy and well supported by local agencies such as Age UK.’ Seaford Community Cinema in East Sussex addressed the #MeToo revelations by organising a festival to celebrate women in film, aiming to ‘please, inspire and inform an all-inclusive community’, say Andrea Hargreaves and Cathy Stewart. ‘It is also the centenary year of many women in the UK first getting the vote. Our choices of films and workshops were dictated by strict adherence to Women & Film, always remembering the enormous struggles that directors, screenwriters, cinematographers and actors have had to power their way upwards on their own merits. We showed 11 feature films, 10 of which could be aligned to the #MeToo strand, including Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Our film choices (except The Hurt Locker) had to pass the Bechdel Test, which dictates that least two named female characters have a conversation with each other and not about a man.’ Hargreaves and Stewart offered free tickets to a wide range of people and organisations, and their success has spurred Seaford on to plan a similar themed event next year that will also reach out into the wider community. Right now the UK seems to be in greater turmoil than ever. Cinema can reflect our world but it can also be an engine of progress, challenging stereotypes and building bridges between people of different cultures and experiences, if we’re imaginative and persistent enough. While the mainstream film industry tends to be short-sighted when it comes to inclusion, community cinemas are tackling prejudice and social inequality by providing a space for people to meet, share stories, learn about each other and the wider world, and enjoy themselves. That is quite a legacy for a movement that works mainly on volunteer power, with very little money but with an unbreakable connection to the heart of our communities.

Amanda Randall co-organises Screen St Ives, near Cambridge. For Scalarama 2018, they are screening The Salesman on Thursday 6 September and The Wages of Fear on Friday 21 September.

Images (clockwise from top right): Seaford’s Women & Film festival; CineQ Birmingham panel discussion; Social night at Chester Film Society; Screen St Ives post-show Q&A; Leigh Film Society’s Toy Story screening; Seaford’s organising team with director Alice Rhodes at the Women & Film festival.

September 1-30, 2018

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SPOTLIGHT ON YOUNG PROGRAMMERS: BRIGHTON TO LONDON (VIA GLASGOW)

Filled with respect for all the teens and twentysomethings who take the initiative to screen films themselves, we talk to two in particular: London-based Reel Good Film Club’s Maria Cabrera (24), who works in the curation team at educational charity Into Film, and freelance programmer Megan Mitchell (23), who is Events & Marketing manager at the Grosvenor Cinema and the Perth Playhouse in Scotland.

Hi Maria! So when and how did you first get into film programming?

Hi Megan! When and how did you first get into film programming?

So my first screening ever was with my two friends Grace and Lydia, and it was through Scalarama. Grace and I had been to a Scalarama meet-up when there was a programme people could pick from. We really loved the trailer for Sidewalk Stories, a silent film by a director called Charles Lane. The event came about very last-minute, and we ended up paying for the venue [the Marlborough Pub & Theatre in Brighton] ourselves and getting loads of our family and friends to come. We started Reel Good Film Club from there. Which cinemas have inspired you? Here in London, I would say Peckhamplex and the ICA [Institute of Contemporary Arts] have stood out for me: they are considerably affordable but also feel very engaged and collaborative with communities and other art forms. The Peckhamplex is a bit far away for me, but I like it – the audience is often largely black people, so I like sitting in a cinema where we get certain injokes, references etc. It’s just really nice. And it’s pink! There’s also the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham. I think it’s got something special, and manages to create screenings spaces that are welcoming to everyone, particularly locals. A recent screening I went to that I really loved was at DIY Space, which was organised by a group I’m part of called the London Latinxs. Some of the members hosted a screening of a Brazilian documentary called The Body is Political, which looks at the experience, activism and lives of transgender people in Brazil. After the screening there was a discussion with the audience. It created a space in which everyone, regardless of whether they knew loads about film or transgender issues, felt they could contribute or at least listen.

Your film club focuses on representing people of colour – how do you select the films? The film club kinda happened to focus on that because that’s what we wanted to watch. There are so many films by or featuring people of colour, so there’s loads to pick from, to be honest. Generally we like to show things that are quite fun and which we connect to, or which may be underseen but which we think are very relevant now. We also like to show things that aren’t always considered “film”, like music videos; I really believe black people pioneered that format. What are the hardest things about being a freelance film programmer, and how do you overcome these obstacles? I think the most challenging things are deciding your capacity and promoting your value to venues and distributors. Programming collaboratively has helped – the three of us at Reel Good Film Club can share responsibilities, but are also able to talk to each other honestly when our day jobs have to come first. When it comes to the screenings themselves, it’s often licensing and screening rights that are the biggest issues. We have often had to compromise what we screen as we don’t have the name or funding to get responses, but I think it’s about not taking it too seriously and just looking for alternatives. If you’re starting a film club, you should be open to alternatives. What’s in the pipeline for you and Reel Good Film Club? I’m actually currently taking a break from programming! I think it’s good to take a break to take in new information or watch new things. Reel Good is definitely still alive, and I know Lydia [Heathcote] and Grace [Barber-Plentie] have some great ideas. For Scalarama, they’re screening Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer and music video party at Deptford Cinema on 21 September and they have organised a special Halloween screening which will be revealed soon :) @GotToBeReel

Growing up in the East End of Glasgow, my first exposure to cinema outside of a multiplex and Hollywood blockbuster context was a school trip to Glasgow Film Theatre. I’d never seen a subtitled film before, and from then I was hooked. I phoned the GFT up the very next week and asked how I could get involved in their cinema, and very luckily they were recruiting young programmers for Glasgow Youth Film Festival. I wouldn’t have known what a programmer was otherwise, and since then I’ve been fortunate enough to continue to work in film. Which cinemas have inspired you? I honestly think I’m more inspired and excited by screenings outside of a traditional cinema setting – community halls, the backs of vans, that kind of thing. Taking film to people who wouldn’t normally be able to access independent cinemas and allowing the joy of film to be experienced by more people really is a thrill. The Screen Machine – run by Regional Screen Scotland, operating across the Highlands and Islands – is one project I find really exciting, taking their mobile cinema to areas that don’t have access to regular screening facilities. But this is just one of many projects doing really important work in bettering access to film. There are so many inspirational organisations across the UK really fighting for this. What do you prioritise when you programme films? Do you have any particular preoccupations or personal imperatives? My personal and my professional “taste” are two very different things – not to say I don’t programme films I love, but there are definitely things that aren’t my taste that I’ve programmed because I know other people will like it, or because it’s an important film to be seen. For this year’s Scalarama, I’m screening Harold and Maude, a personal favourite of mine, on my birthday as an indulgence! But in regards to programming generally I try and think of my audience. If it plays to an empty room, it doesn’t matter if I love it.

September 1-30, 2018

What are the hardest things about being a freelance film programmer, and how do you overcome these obstacles? I’ve been pretty lucky with regard to freelance programming and the organisations which I’ve gotten to work with, but I think that getting people to take risks takes some convincing – like ‘Hey, let’s take some of your festival out of whatever stuffy arthouse cinema you usually use and take it to a community hall or elderly housing or the park!’ doesn’t always go down too well when budgets are tight and they think audiences in these spaces aren’t guaranteed. But risks are worth taking. What’s in the pipeline for you as a film programmer (especially in September)? Harold and Maude, directed by the wonderful Hal Ashby with an unbelievable Cat Stevens soundtrack! It’s a scream of a film, and Scalarama is the perfect time for me to put on something I really love but know maybe wouldn’t draw a massive audience – the DIY aspect of Scalarama really does let people take those risks and feel supported, both by the extended network of programmers and the marketing support.

MWM presents Harold and Maude on 25 September at The Old Hairdressers, Glasgow. @meganwmglesga

ANIM18 BRITISH ANIMATED FILM

HELLO Anim18 is a UK-wide celebration of British animation, taking place from April to November 2018. Led by Film Hub Wales and Chapter (Cardiff) working with the BFI Film Audience Network and project partners, Anim18 will showcase the best of British talent – past, present and future – through a programme of screenings, activities and events across the UK. Anim18 are bringing together a newly developed network of industry expertise, exhibition partners and community-focused organisations to generate renewed interest in British animation, bring classic titles back into the spotlight, celebrate British talent in new releases, and unveil brand new commissions. If you’d like to take part in Anim18, explore the Anim18 website at anim18.co.uk and check out your local venue for screenings.

To celebrate the weird and wonderful world of British animated film, Anim18 has teamed up with the four of us from Young FAN to be the official Young Ambassadors for the season. All four of us are aged 18-25 and are passionate about animated films. We hope that our ramblings about the films we love will give you a fresh perspective and renewed curiosity to look into the hidden gems of British animated film. Within this zine, you’ll find personal anecdotes about our earliest experiences of animation, an interview with the inspirational Terry Wragg of Leeds Animation Workshop, advice about getting into animation from women working in the industry for all you budding animators out there, and so much more.

WHO WE ARE My name is Alexandra (Alex) Osben, and I am an English and Film Studies graduate and young programmer at the BFI. One of my earliest experiences of animation was watching The Last Unicorn whilst I was in hospital after having my tonsils taken out. There was only one television for the whole children’s ward and we each got an hour time-slot to watch whatever we wanted. I was so engrossed in the fate of the last unicorn that the trauma of having the channel turned over halfway through haunts me to this day. I still don’t know how the film ends! I also remember attending a oneday animation workshop, which I don’t remember much about, but I’m pretty sure plasticine and a video camcorder was involved (this was the ‘90s, after all), and I remember having a lot of fun.

My name is Imogen Dodds, I am 21 years old, studying film at the University of Kent, and am a pint-sized but dedicated fan of animated film. I clearly remember sitting amongst my three siblings, my younger brother rocking back and forth on a Thomas the Tank Engine toy, occasionally being prodded by my eldest sister to stop as we watched a single episode of William’s Wish Wellingtons my parents had taped onto a video to keep us occupied. That is my earliest memory of being exposed to animation in any form, and is probably my fondest. The four of us would watch the same episode of the show, when William is transported to a desert and desperately trying to reach an oasis, so often that together we can piece together the whole thing.

My name is James Calver; I am 23 years old, working by day at the Independent Cinema Office. It was my Nan who first introduced me to animation through an old VHS copy of Wallace & Gromit’s A Close Shave. She used to store it in an old cabinet next to the TV with a child lock on the door – Nan didn’t want us watching television all of the time. It didn’t take me long though to work out how to open the lock, and from that moment onwards that VHS would be the first thing I’d go for every week when I went round there. To this day we’re both still massive Aardman fans, and always go to the cinema to see their latest creation.

My name is Kirsty Prescott. I am 20 years old and a young film programmer at Storyhouse. I have always loved animation and as a child I would watch The Snowman on repeat everyday (much to the joy of my parents). For me the film never lasted long enough and I would quickly rewind the video back to beginning, the short break my parents probably needed before it started all over again. When The Snowman and the Snowdog was released I ran and bought a copy and sat as I did as a child watching it on repeat. Animation is timeless and no matter where I am in life animation is always going to be a love of mine.

AARDENT ANIMATORS

In many British households, the works of Aardman Animations hold a special place in people’s hearts. Some were brought up on the original Wallace & Gromit short films; others watch Chicken Run every year at Christmas; others still are only just discovering the studio now through Shaun the Sheep. In any case, the undeniable Britishness of Aardman has seen them become ingrained in our culture. Although they had seen success with their early stop-motion work, even picking up an Oscar for Creature Comforts, it wasn’t until the friendly, malleable faces of Wallace and Gromit first appeared on our screens that the nation truly started to fall in love with stop-motion animation. The handcrafted nature of the three short films from that era endeared them to many, allowing for the crafting of some of the most iconic characters in British animation. Outside of the titular pair, there was Feathers McGraw, Shaun the Sheep, and – though it may not be as famous – an oven that wants to ski. Over the past couple of decades, the influences of Aardman have become more apparent in the landscape of animation, partly down to their own success. To this day, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit remains the only stop-motion film to snatch the ‘Best Animated Feature’ Academy Award from the clutches of Pixar or Disney. On top of this, eight out of the ten stop-motion features and shorts that Aardman have released have garnered nominations from the Academy, with only Chicken Run and

Early Man not receiving nods (though the latter could be up for an award next year).

Oliver was able to hone his craft, and establish how to visualise an epic story filmed on a minute scale.

During this time, other filmmakers and studios have moved into the world of stop-motion animation to tell their own stories. Laika Entertainment was set up in Oregon as America’s answer to Aardman, focusing solely on the production of stop-motion features. To date, they’ve released four titles, all of which have been successful. Their first title, Coraline, was by far their most popular with the general public, but their most recent title, Kubo and the Two Strings, has been hailed as one of the pinnacles of modern animation.

Beyond the studios and the auteurs, there have been several other stopmotion films made over the past few years that have pushed the platform in different directions while maintaining that handcrafted charm. Duke Johnson and Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa could be seen as the first stop-motion feature focused at an adult audience. There was the French film Ma vie de Courgette (My Life as a Courgette), directed by Claude Barras, which, though aimed at younger audiences, dealt with deeply emotional topics through wonderfully colourful visuals and storytelling. Finally, though not made with traditional stopmotion animation, The Lego Movie took the stop-motion style to an international audience, adopting various techniques to give the Lego world a visual aesthetic distinctive from the real world.

Modern auteur Wes Anderson has also adopted the technique in various ways throughout his career, drip-feeding elements into his films since The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou before going on to make two stop-motion animated features: Fantastic Mr. Fox and Isle of Dogs. These two features manage to perfectly encapsulate Anderson’s unique visual style through the hand-sculpted nature of stop-motion. The influence of Aardman on both the works of Laika and Wes Anderson reach even further than simply establishing stop-motion animation as a viable format of storytelling. Tristan Oliver, the trusted DP (director of photography) for many years at Aardman, went on to photograph films for both Laika and Anderson, as well as lending his talents to the hand-painted marvel Loving Vincent. But it was at Aardman that

When you look at the huge increase in the number of stop-motion films over the last few decades, it’s clear that cinema audiences have not lost their hunger for the works of Aardman, Laika and all the other filmmakers who are looking at this format as a possible option for telling their story. Though we may not get to see Wallace and Gromit pair up on screen again, we can rest assured that the charm and wonder of Aardman Animations will continue to be felt for years to come.

James Calver explores the impact of the quintessentially British Aardman Animations on modern animation.

LEEDS ANIMATION WORKSHOP This year Leeds Animation Workshop, a women’s collective, celebrates its 40th anniversary. Their first animated film focused on a key issue raised by the 70s feminist libertarian movement: childcare available for all under 5s. Leeds Animation Workshop’s films always include a message to help other and to be tool for groups to use to share that message. The Anim18 Ambassadors visited the workshop and met with animators Terry and Jo to find out more about it.

Their Purpose ‘Our films have been designed as a response to something that has seemed important to us and provide a way that people can start a discussion about it and ask questions about it. It provokes a discussion, we’re not trying to tell people what to do or saying this is the answer, we are just saying these are the questions we think people should be discussing.’

Why Animation? ‘An animated character is easier for people to relate to and the response is different. With a real person, viewers can become defensive. You can also get more than one person‘s character into one animated figure. Animation helps condense the message.’

Women Working in Animation ‘When we started there weren’t many female animation role models. The animated industry was segregated. 99% of jobs were gender-specific until the mid 80s so if you were a woman in the animation industry you usually went into the paint and trace department. We met one female animator, Joanne Gooding, and had a lot of debate while working with her: the industry used to have a very stereotypical way of drawing women.’

Animated Women ‘The way women talk has changed, but the way they look hasn’t as much. Still, representation of women has certainly moved on. I wouldn’t say it’s there yet, but it’s certainly improving; they don’t break their ankles as soon as the action starts, which they all used to do. There’s been a lot of progress.’

Animation Today ‘Animation is a global industry and the boundaries between live-action and animation are much more fluid. It’s not so clearcut any more. I think independent British animated film is at an amazing period; there are numerous independent animators who are doing really good work and there are numerous women also now doing really good work. The biggest British animated film last year Ethel & Ernest, that came from a production company run by women. The Breadwinner was written, directed, animated and produced by four different women.’

Leeds Animation Workshop Future ‘More money. More people to get involved. An apprentice.’

For more information on the workshop, visit www.leedsanimation.org.

ADVICE FOR ASPIRING ANIMATORS

WATERSHIP DOWN: WHEN RABBITS ATTACK

Inspired by women working in animation, we spoke to a some established female animators and asked them what advice or tips they would give to those looking to get into the industry. A huge thank you to Vicky, Terry and Jo. Here is what they had to say:

‘Make as much work as you can in your spare time. Look out for jobs and opportunities to assist people on different scales of production from lowbudget to high-budget. Take different job roles e.g. spend some time in puppet making or the art department or even the production office. Get to know the way animation is produced. Talk to people, and email animators, production companies and producers through their websites politely asking for advice, or if they have any up and coming projects you might be able to help them out with as you’re looking for experience. Treat these experiences with the greatest respect and thank everyone as they do not have to go out of their way to help you. Keep smiling and GOOD LUCK!’ Vicky Mather, award-winning filmmaker, multimedia artist and lecturer

‘Go for it! Everybody is different. Look for those opportunities. Just start. The more you put in the more you get out. As long as people do it their own way, that’s what’s important.’ Terry and Jo of the not-for-profit women’s collective Leeds Animation Workshop.

It was the last day of summer term. I was eight, and along with my other classmates I was looking forward to a day of doing nothing but colouring in, board games and stories. Our teacher let us do some of that, but she also decided it might be nice to watch a film. What had she brought in for us to watch? Superman, E.T.? Nope – it was a film about rabbits. None of us had heard of Watership Down. The front cover looked innocent enough: just two rabbits casually sitting on their haunches with a lovely red sunset behind them. One of them looked a little concerned, nervous perhaps, but hey – it’s got to be worrying being a rabbit! What struck me initially was the animation style. It was beautifully drawn and not like the Disney films I’d seen. This felt very different in terms of colour and look, and the music was very English countryside. It was all very peaceful. But let’s face it: this is all to lull us, the innocent eight-year-old viewers, into thinking this is just going to be a cute talking-rabbit movie. Admittedly, the Black Rabbit of Death does make an appearance two minutes in, but I think I was still too busy wrestling sweets off Michael Bickett to notice. I think it’s about seven minutes in when the fields of blood first appear. The film doesn’t hang around to signpost the fact that all might not be well in Sandleford Warren. One particular rabbit experiences visions, and they’re not of carrots. From then on it’s quite clear this is a film about survival, and to a bunch of eight-year-olds it was probably the most traumatic thing you could put in front of them, save maybe for Bambi or The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. When the film’s villain, General Woundwort, appeared, I seem to remember there were tears. I don’t know who broke first, but it only took one to go, and the rest followed.

I still find Woundwort horrific today. He’s a complete monster – Begbie with fur. Spill his carrot juice and you can kiss goodbye to consciousness. He knocks other movie villains into a hat. He’d eat your liver, heart and kidneys with fava beans and a nice Chianti. This guy doesn’t need a hockey mask to hide behind. He’s got teeth like Stonehenge, a cold dead eye, and is the size of a small spaniel. He’s no rabbit: he’s a furry nightmare. Woundwort’s last ever words – ‘Come back! Come back, you fools! Come back! Come back and fight! Dogs aren’t dangerous!’ sum him up nicely. He’ll fight anything and everything. His body was never found; maybe he’s still out there, terrorising cows because he likes a challenge. And to a bunch of eight-year-olds that day, he stayed with us for an entire summer and beyond. Cheers, Mrs. Parr.

Imogen Dodds tells us how animation can break through limited worldviews.

I have been surrounded by the Afghanistan conflict for the vast majority of my life but I can barely remember when it fully became conscious knowledge. When I was seven, my family moved to the Ministry of Defence base in Gibraltar: my Dad had been hired to teach at their primary school. Without being fully aware of it, I was making friends and meeting many people who were involved in some way in the conflict. A few years after we left Gibraltar to move back to England I would learn that a close friend of mine lost her father in the Afghanistan war. To me, at the tender age of 10, it placed the war in black and white terms. We were good and Afghanistan was bad. In my young mind, there was no way my best friend’s Dad could do anything wrong. He had to be fighting for a good reason. Seeing the reality Yet Nora Twomey’s 2017 film The Breadwinner showed me the grim reality of what is so often painted as a clear issue in our media. As a child, I could never comprehend what it meant to have ‘boots on the ground’. I couldn’t empathise with the idea of the British soldiers being villains in someone else’s eyes. I was so alienated from the struggles and fears of children the same age as me – how could I ever fathom that reality? Yet thousands of children have to live it. That is why, to me, this film is such so vital. Kilkenny’s Cartoon Saloon is pioneering, in its matching of sweeping mythical storytelling with down-to-earth realities, a combination that is perfectly suited to Deborah Ellis’s much-loved novel. Although I was completely taken in by the fantastical story Parvana, the film’s protagonist, was weaving, the true beauty of the film lies in how we are guided through the eyes of a determined young girl. It is by her resilience that the film does not feel preachy or agenda-driven; the humour and courage are undeniably human. As I watched the film unfold, I suddenly saw the inverse of my childhood. The perspective of a conflict that in my 10-year-old mind made sense but played out before me felt so alien. I had met soldiers that had been the boots on the ground referred to in The Breadwinner’s opening dialogue. Those soldiers had been scary in the eyes of children as old as me. There lies the true power of this beautiful film: its ability to humanise a conflict in a genuine and empathetic way. So as I watched the 11-year-old Parvana on the streets of Kabul, having cut off her hair and put on the clothes of her dead brother to provide a means of survival for her family, the reality of which I had been superficially aware was painted in all its colours before me. The bright excitement of Parvana feeling the tendrils of freedom never afforded to her under the Taliban rule, since women cannot leave their homes unchaperoned, are clouded by the looming threat of war gathering once again.

RESCUE DRAWN Grounded in the story The film is a testament to both Ellis’s novel, painstakingly researched in the late 1990s when she interviewed girls and women in refugee camps in Pakistan, but also Nora Twomey’s sensitivity in her screen adaption. Twomey retains the authentic culture of Ellis’s book yet pushes the narrative so that it shines on the big screen. As the world Parvana creates gently wraps into her reality, the spiralling cut-out animations of her imagination echo Twomey’s past cocreations such as The Secret of Kells, while remaining steadfast to their own specific colours and the culture of Parvana’s Afghanistan. It is the repeated strength of Cartoon Saloon’s style of interlocking theatrical stories with grounded reality, a style that feels suited to the rich culture of Afghanistan. What fills every frame of The Breadwinner is care, love and empathy, all of which are desperately needed to tell this story. A legacy for refugee voices The film’s ability to open eyes and humanise the often-chaotic media of today has inspired other filmmakers. I work with a young filmmakers’ group of 15-25-year-olds called SCREEN31, a branch of the Gulbenkian- and Arts Council-funded organisation ART31 that strives to put young people at the heart of arts and culture. The group met and worked with two Syrian refugees who were the same age as them, and were tasked to create a short stop-motion film of their story. What unfolded was an incredible journey for SCREEN31 as well as Rand and Omar, the refugees. Just as I had grown up with the Afghanistan war in the background of my life, the Syrian war is an ongoing backdrop in many British young people’s lives today. This is why I think The Breadwinner is so important: its bright, heartfelt storytelling inspired a group of young people to eloquently tell the story of two people their age with completely different life experiences. The other important aspect of the use of animation in storytelling, especially in these cases, is that it affords anonymity and protection for the subjects of these films. Rand and Omar could not be shown on screen, but animation allows for their story to still be told. As Annabel, a member of SCREEN31, puts it: ‘I would encourage others to take up the chance to involve yourself with refugees and hear their stories. It is vital to see them for who they are.’ The Story of Rand and Omar will be screened as a short before films at the Gulbenkian, including a screening of The Breadwinner. I hope that as more and more people see The Breadwinner or come across The Story of Rand and Omar, they will inspire others to look at conflicts not through statistics or news reports, but for the people and their stories.

TOP DOGS From the first British animated feature film, Animal Farm (1954), to familyfavourite escape comedy Chicken Run (2000), animators have used animals as their subject matter time and again. Despite the variety of styles and storylines, what is integral to these creature features is the bond between animals and humans. They explore the ways in which we relate to each other and negotiate our coexistence; they teach us about the world around us, and about ourselves. It comes as no surprise that one of the best represented animals in animation is man’s best friend: dogs. From stop-motion feature films to femaledirected shorts, here is a rundown of the best British canine cartoons. The Plague Dogs (Martin Rosen, 1982) After directing heart-wrenching rabbit drama Watership Down in 1978, Martin Rosen went on to adapt another Richard Adams novel, The Plague Dogs, in 1982. The film follows two dogs, Snitter (voiced by the late John Hurt) and Rowf, as they escape from an animal research facility, evading recapture from ‘the white coats’ and trying to survive in the treacherous British countryside. Despite their differences (Rowf remains wary of humans, while Snitter yearns to connect with them in the way that he did with his previous ‘master’), the pair help and care for each other throughout their difficult journey. Equal parts animal abuse inquiry and cinematic escape adventure, the film makes a powerful statement about the need for compassion and empathy between dogs and humans alike.

Alex Osben gives us a rundown of five of the best canine cartoons.

Isle of Dogs (Wes Anderson, 2018)

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the WereRabbit (Nick Park & Steve Box, 2005) Following the success of Nick Park’s A Grand Day Out (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995), Aardman’s comedic clay duo – the hapless but well-meaning inventor Wallace and his pet beagle Gromit – returned in 2005 for the feature-length adventure Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. While providing a humane pest control service to a town that prides itself on its annual vegetable competition, Wallace uses a mind-altering machine, the ‘Mind Manipulation-O-Matic’, to discourage local rabbits from eating the resident’s prized crops. Soon after, the town is plagued by a giant bunny rabbit, leaving the intelligent and resourceful Gromit to come to the rescue. Known for his uncanny facial expressions and unwavering loyalty to his clumsy companion Wallace, Gromit has become one of the most recognisable and well-loved dogs in cinema.

Almost ten years after directing Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), Wes Anderson returned to animation with Isle of Dogs. After every dog in Megasaki City is banished to Trash Island by Mayor Kobayashi, his nephew Atari goes on a mission to find his pet Spots. He is soon accompanied by a motley menagerie of abandoned dogs (voiced by the likes of Jeff Goldblum, Edward Norton, and long-time Wes Anderson collaborator Bill Murray) who are eagerly led by reluctant stray Chief (Bryan Cranston). Not only was the film’s title inspired by a certain geographic area of the UK, but the film, like Frankenweenie, was produced at 3 Mills Studios in East London. It was a huge critical and commercial success, proving that we are still a nation of dog-lovers eager to see our furry friends depicted on the big screen.

Frankenweenie (Tim Burton, 2012) After collaborating with Henry Selick on The Nightmare before Christmas (1993) and James and the Giant Peach (1996), and directing stop-motion animation Corpse Bride (2005), master of dark eccentricity Tim Burton directed Frankenweenie (2012). It was the culmination of a long-running idea for the director, expanding on the story of a boy and his dog explored in his 1984 short of the same name. As an homage to Mary Shelley’s famous novel and subsequent cinematic versions of Frankenstein’s monster, a young boy named Victor, inspired by a demonstration in his science class at school, uses electricity to resurrect his deceased bull terrier Sparky. Victor’s experiment soon goes awry, ultimately teaching him how to deal with grief and accept the loss of his beloved pet. The film was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA upon its release, and remains one of Burton’s sweetest films to date.

BFI: A New History of British Animation Although not a feature film like the other entries on this list, these canine cartoons deserve a mention. Curators at the BFI have delved deep into their archives to create short film packages celebrating over 100 years of British animation, and they include a range of dog-related material. Proving that the subject of man’s best friend is not restricted to male-directed studio features, these curated programmes include numerous shorts from female filmmakers, and among the most innovative are the ones featuring dogs, such as the mystical companion in Alison De Vere’s Black Dog (1987) and a satirical bulldog in Joanna Quinn’s Britannia (1993), both of which feature in BFI: A New History of British Animation Part 3. These shorts programmes are a great example of the versatility of animation; it is the perfect platform to explore the stories, personalities, and idiosyncrasies of our favourite pet.

Answers: Don’t Worry Be Happy - Bobby McFerrin (Flushed Away) / I Predict A Riot - Kaiser Chiefs (Early Man) / The Wanderer - Dion (Chicken Run) / Not Crying - Flight of the Conchords (Pirates! An Adventure with Scientists) / Blowin’ In the Wind - Bob Dylan (When the Wind Blows) / Yellow Submarine - The Beatles (Yellow Submarine) / Aisling Song - Christian Mooney (The Secrets of Kells) / Bright Eyes - Art Garfunkel (Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit) / Starry Starry Night - Lianne Le Havas (Loving Vincent) / The Crown Sleeps - Qais Essar, Mychael Danna, Jeff Danna (The Breadwinner)

Jeff Danna Don’t Worry Be Happy - Bobby McFerrin

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

I Predict A Riot - Kaiser Chiefs

The Breadwinner

The Wanderer - Dion

When the Wind Blows

Not Crying - Flight of the Conchords

Yellow Submarine

Blowin’ In the Wind - Bob Dylan

Flushed Away

Yellow Submarine - The Beatles

Pirates! An Adventure with Scientists

Aisling Song - Christian Mooney

The Secret of Kells

Bright Eyes - Art Garfunkel

Early Man

Starry Starry Night - Lianne Le Havas

Loving Vincent

The Crown Sleeps - Qais Essar, Mychael Danna,

Chicken Run

IMOGEN’S ESSENTIAL ANIMATED FILM MIXTAPE

September 1-30, 2018

SCALARAMA

SPOTLIGHT ON YOUNG PROGRAMMERS: KEEP SCREENING LIKE WE’RE 22

Everything began when I watched Éric Rohmer’s The Green Ray on MUBI in early 2015. I was a terribly depressed, anxious, housebound college dropout and that film single-handedly saved my life. The immense power of cinema had finally revealed itself to me. I felt an uncontrollable urge to share it with others.

Nevertheless, consider my two cents: watch as many films as you can. Go to the cinema or, if you can’t afford it, go to the library or charity shops. (If you live in London, check out radiantcircus.com – a great listings guide to DIY, indie and alternative film screenings.) Always look beyond the canon and what you already know. Film

These opportunities came to me thanks to hard work… partly. I also credit good luck, good friends and living with my parents – which is why I’m not sure I’m qualified to give career advice, especially as I’m still only an amateur curator.

Deptford Cinema’s Amos us through his journey programmer, and offers starting out on a very

Levin (22) talks so far as a film advice to those exciting path.

Thanks to them and many others I’ve begun to discern what matters to me as a programmer. For the sake of brevity, here’s an improvised mini-festo: 1. Just because you can show a film for free does not mean you should. Don’t exploit filmmakers. Pay them. 2. Keep your screenings affordable. If you lament the “death of cinema” and charge £15 for a film, I don’t know what to tell you.

It was only later that year when Phil Foxwood and Helen MacKenzie came to the BFI to talk about Scalarama that I realised film programming was a thing. Helen mentioned a place called Deptford Cinema, a magical realm where volunteers can put on screenings without prior programming experience. I gasped. Imagine! So I started out there by programming a season of animated features (a lifelong passion) like Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed and Paul Grimault’s The King and the Mockingbird. Since then I’ve shown lots of Varda, East Asian cinema and various one-offs. In that time I got my first full-time job as a cinema usher and later (thanks to a collaborative screening of the 1984 documentary Los Sures in late 2016) met a couple of people from MUBI. I’ve since worked there as a video editor and marketing assistant. Thanks to my work at Deptford I was also asked last year to join the London Migration Film Festival as a co-programmer!

3. A diverse programme will bring diverse audiences. Never venturing outside the canon will only perpetuate the current staleness of indie exhibition (which we know mostly caters to the white middle class).

is young, yet feels infinite; every week I come across a certain movement or genre I had no idea existed. So explore film history, film criticism, festival programmes, New York’s rep scene, and lose yourself on Wikipedia. (Also check out filmstudiesforfree.blogspot.com.) Finally, something I find incredibly valuable is to follow other programmers and critics online. Not necessarily to take inspiration from what they do but rather to understand their drives and principles. Ashley Clark (@_Ash_Clark) is great at championing neglected films and recontextualising classics. Miriam Bale (@mimbale) teaches you to decolonise your cinema. Eric Allen Hatch (@ericallenhatch)’s fight for more inclusive, less commercially driven arthouse culture inspires me daily. Herb Shellenberger (@htshell) is a genius. Carlo Chatrian (@CarloChatrian) is bold. Chiara Marañón (@chiarastami) is my film school.

I try to honour that final point as best I can. By the time this is published, we will have hosted our Menelik Shabazz retrospective at Deptford, and I hope it did well. Inherent to Deptford Cinema’s nonhierarchical nature is the idea that all volunteers, new and experienced, share a common ground. But perhaps my favourite thing about this idea is that it extends to the audience – or whoever happens to walk in. This responsivity to grassroots enthusiasm is part of a national trend: over the past few years, the UK has seen a great new wave of programming collectives wash over the repertory sector. They’re filling a certain void in film culture that has been felt not only by the industry but by the general public too. This small but skilful community is revitalising British moviegoing and I’m incredibly proud to be part of it.

SCALARAMA

September 1-30, 2018

SPOTLIGHT ON YOUNG A DAY IN THE PROGRAMMERS: LIFE OF A FILM CARLA PROGRAMMER 15-year-old film fanatic Carla from Liverpool has been working with Scalarama Liverpool coordinator Monika Rodriguez to put on her first screening and she’s chosen The Florida Project. Here she explains her choice and what cinema means to her.

“Community cinema is important to me, It’s definitely something I’d like to see More of in Liverpool in the coming years, A shared experience to cherish with your peers.” As September draws nearer, I’m getting more and more excited about screening The Florida Project. When I think back all the way to when I first met Monika, it makes me very grateful things are finally getting off their feet. I’ve chosen to screen The Florida Project because I think it’s such a rare film: it has so much charm and sweetness while dealing with such a difficult topic of poverty. There is a magic about the film, and I think that’s the magic and blissful naivety of childhood. There’s an element of dramatic irony as we anticipate the children becoming like their parents – stuck in the loop of reckless behaviour and poverty. This is my first time screening anything so it’s really exciting and definitely something I want to continue in the future. What I want to achieve through screening the film is creating a sense of togetherness: I think sometimes going to the cinema can be a lonely experience, which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on what you want out of it. But the cinema experiences I remember most are the ones where there’s a buzz in the room because everyone has a common interest (but I think this is more the case when you screen a film that has developed a cult following). So, at the end of The Florida Project screening, we’re hosting a debate about the film. I really like this idea because not only did Monika say it was popular, but when I showed the film to my family everyone had polar opposite opinions – I noticed that more with this film than any other we’d watched together. So I’m looking forward to that, because I think we’re going to hear some really interesting opinions. I feel like in this article, I’ve used the word ‘I’ a lot. And I don’t want it to come across as though the screening is about what I want. Because the screening is about the film, and the feelings it inspires in those who come to watch it. And it’s those feelings that I really want to be shared on the evening. I hope to see you then, Carla

Carla presents The Florida Project on Friday 21 September at Liverpool Central Library as part of Big Adventure Cinema’s Young Adventurer programme.

Best known for curating Il Cinema Ritrovato (Cinema Rediscovered) film festival in Bologna, Ehsan Khoshbakht walks us through a typical day at the proverbial office.

What we might call a “typical day” involves watching films (two in their entirety and sampling some more), reading (mostly in print as I no longer trust the internet), listening to music (at all times except when watching films) – and then the exhausting task of writing and replying to emails, choosing the right word to mellow the heart of a reluctant archivist or practising the art of negotiation with a rights-holder. So in a sense, the day revolves around the conflict between the ideal (life as lived with and through art) and reality (in trying to bring that same art to the public, you might start hating it). Yet, in another sense, there’s no such thing as a typical day when you’re dealing with film history. Usually you don’t look desperately for new ideas: they come knocking at your door. They demand to be realised. At first, every single idea (and there are two or three of them every day) seems to be essential. You plan when and how to get back to them, but time prudently filters them, and only that which you remember is worth pursuing further. Curating is the art of remembering – not forcing oneself to remember, but seeing what can be remembered. ‘The rights situation with the film is murky,’ says the voice of the festival colleague on the other end of the line. Another moment of dilemma: to screen or not to screen? That is the question. I always fight tooth and nail to screen, at least until the point at which the efforts turn fruitless. It’s easy to give up, but the easier we give up, the more quickly films fall into oblivion. It’s more of an aesthetic and moral decision than a managerial one, at least in the first few months leading up to the event. As the screening approaches, the voice of logic and logistics (‘Ah, but with that rental fee I could show two films instead of one!’; ‘It costs that much to ship a 35mm print from the States? Let’s just show it from an existing DCP in Europe’) becomes more pronounced. Two emails arrive from two experts on the subject your curatorial project focuses on: one hates a certain film and the other highly recommends it. At some point, you should tune out these external comments and listen to the voice of your own reason. You can’t always please everyone and you shouldn’t even try. A list of dicey questions to be answered: how many are likely to be interested in seeing the film(s)? Which is the right venue for the screening? Who’d be best suited to write the programme notes, and who should introduce it? How can one encourage people to see a film that is important but not a masterpiece, or even a great film? How to avoid hyperbole but at the same time fill the venue? You are never too sure if you’re going to survive this.

Six months later... The show’s on. You stand nervously at the back of the cinema, making sure everybody gets in. You’re nervous, as if you made the film yourself. In your mind you adopt the identity of the filmmaker: all curators are Sabzians, the character from Abbas Kiarostami’s Close-Up who pretends to be a reputed filmmaker. When the festival’s over, you’ll be someone else. Maybe even for two weeks you become yourself. @EhsanKhoshbakht

September 1-30, 2018

SCALARAMA

PEACE! BREAD! LAUGHS!

THE CINEMA MUSEUM

Screenwriter David Rattigan examines the politics of the man behind the Tramp.

Arjun Sajip provides an update on the fate of the Cinema Museum, one of London’s best-loved film establishments, after an unexpected leasehold debacle plunged it into existential uncertainty for several months.

It’s not often that independent cinemas find themselves in the mainstream media spotlight, and it’s not often that cultural establishments are spared the looming scythe of austerity after public outcry. But recently the Cinema Museum in Kennington has been enjoying both positions.

Charlie Chaplin may have been one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, but did you know he was also a communist? Well, that was according to the U.S. government, who were so feverishly convinced that Chaplin was a cardcarrying, flag-waving, vodka-glugging Red Devil Soviet Pinko they had him booted from the country in 1952. So – was there any truth to it? Well, there’s no denying Chaplin was a bit of a leftie. Born as he was in Victorian London, Chaplin’s childhood was marked by extreme poverty (with painful memories of the Lambeth Workhouse, now the Cinema Museum), and it would foster in him a compassion for the working class that inspired the character on which he built his career: the Tramp. More than just a clown with a toothbrush moustache, the Tramp captured the essential humanity of the poor. The potency of his act came not from the skill with which he executed a pratfall (though he was decidedly good at that) but the humorous ways in which he kicked back against the unrelenting misery of life at the bottom of a capitalist society. Capitalism, Chaplin would say, was ‘rugged for a few, ragged for many,’ and certainly he experienced the ‘rugged’ side as one of Hollywood’s wealthiest stars, but he was nevertheless frequently vocal about his desire to reform it. During the Great Depression, he proposed his own ‘Economic Solution’ that called for a more ‘humane’ form of capitalism, demanding greater protection for workers, and he was deeply receptive to President Roosevelt’s left-wing reconfiguration of American society under the New Deal, which he believed ‘saved capitalism from complete collapse’. But was he a flippin’ COMMUNIST?! Officially, no, and Chaplin made it plain on several occasions. ‘I will give you a hint on where I stand,’ he wrote in a memo to the chairman of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, a body now infamous for its role in whipping

up the Red Scare hysteria of Cold War America. ‘I am not a Communist.’ But communism’s philosophy of empowering the powerless no doubt had something of an allure for Chaplin. ‘Communism was going to change everything,’ he said, according to fellow silent film pioneer Buster Keaton. ‘The well would help the sick, the rich would help the poor.’ And he would speak favourably of the Soviet Union and its Marxist experiment, claiming in 1921 that he was ‘immensely interested in that great country and its efforts towards social reconstruction after chaos.’ But a communist? Chaplin? The self-made movie magnate who reaped the spoils of American free enterprise and spent his final years living in a decadent Swiss mansion? It seems unlikely. Instead, Chaplin should be regarded as an artist who possessed an intense empathy for ordinary people, and who captured their dignity through film. In his own words: ‘That’s all my political philosophy is – that people have a roof over their head and are permitted to work and have selfrespect and raise a family – that’s all. That’s as far as I go.’ @davidmrattigan

Those of you who have been lucky enough to visit the Museum will be well aware of its manifold pleasures and uses. Much is made of the fact that it used to be the Lambeth Workhouse, which once housed a young Charlie Chaplin – and indeed, the Chaplin-themed artwork and artefacts are charming and touching. But he only stayed there for a matter of weeks, when he was seven, and although the Museum is a) genuinely a museum and b) justly renowned for its frequent screening of British silent films presented by the Kennington Bioscope film club, to think of the institution as simply a historic heritage site would be to gravely underestimate its role today as a vibrant and imaginative communal focal point. ‘Wokeness’ might not immediately come to mind when you think of an institution as fond of heritage as the Cinema Museum, but Ronald Grant and Martin Humphries are no ordinary men. Since setting up the Museum in 1986, they knew that to remain relevant and useful, it had to balance a love for (and safeguarding of) British cinematic history with a modern, cosmopolitan outlook that celebrated diversity and used film screenings as a means to forge lasting connections between people. This is illustrated by the always well-attended Vito Project screenings: screenings of a wide range of queer cinema, ranging from classics like Dog Day Afternoon and All About My Mother to bold new visions such as Sean Baker’s Tangerine, generally followed by Q&As and mingling. The Museum also actively tries to get young people involved – its remarkably well-thoughtthrough volunteer scheme caters to people from all backgrounds and with all manner of skill-sets, assigning them to help out with whichever kind of tasks they feel comfortable with – archiving, front of house, marketing, whatever. Until May this year, the Museum had faced eight months of uncertainty. Despite a long-held promise that the Museum would be able to buy the property it had been occupying for almost two decades when its lease ran out in March 2018, the lessors – namely the financially stretched South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM) – back-pedalled in October last year, and made plans to sell the site to a third party. Since there was a good chance the purchasers would be property developers bent on converting the whole site into apartments, the prospects were dim for the Cinema Museum, especially when remembering that the Scala cinema ultimately closed because its lease ran

out. Where would the Museum store its tonnes of books, films, archival material and rare cinematic memorabilia, let alone make it all accessible to the public? Cue an inspirational response from tens of thousands of cinema lovers. A petition to ‘Save the Cinema Museum’ garnered over 36,000 online signatures; the institution’s plight was picked up by Private Eye and the Guardian as well as the local newspapers; and the Museum ended up winning Time Out’s Most Loved Local Culture Spot award.

This uprising of support duly put pressure on SLaM, and in May it was announced that the new owners of the £15.5m site would be property developer Anthology – not the highest bidder, but the one that best ticked the NHS’s “fair value” stipulation. ‘We recognise that this space is highly regarded by the local community,’ said Anthology’s executive director Adam Gaymer, ‘and we are keen to work with the Cinema Museum to ensure its long-term existence.’ Time will tell whether or not Anthology abides by what SLaM CEO Matthew Patrick said of it – that it ‘demonstrated a firm commitment towards preserving the Cinema Museum’s heritage’. But we know that at least for now, and thanks in part to legions of film-lovers who refused to be apathetic, this unique British institution has a new lease of life. @ArjSaj

WHEN UPRISINGS SCALARAMA

September 1-30, 2018

Journalist Becki Hawkes combines her love for cinema, zombies and 1968 in an essay on George A. Romeroâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s seminal Night of the Living Dead. Warning: this article contains spoilers.

GET REAL

September 1-30, 2018

George Romero’s 1968 film Night of the Living Dead is, at mangled, chewed-up heart, an enjoyably nasty low-budget horror movie. It opens, appropriately enough, with a drive to a graveyard. Siblings Barbra (Judith O’Dea) and Johnny (Russell Streiner) visit their father’s last resting place to lay flowers but are attacked there by a strange, shambling man (a reanimated corpse, though no one yet realises it). There is gore galore, as the newly-risen cannibalistic dead gleefully tuck into human intestines – animal parts, donated by a butcher who had invested in the film – and a smattering of bleak humour as the human survivors bicker and vie for power. In one sequence, dwelt on with gratifyingly brutal intensity, a zombified young girl murders her mother with a trowel. Dad has already been partially devoured. It’s a film that exists, primarily, because its makers, Romero and cowriter John Russo, knew that cinemagoers like to be terrified, appalled and entertained, and because they knew that they could make money from doing this on the cheap (the budget for the film, which was Romero’s first feature, was just $114,000). And yet Night of the Living Dead – as you probably know full well, reading this 50 years after it first came out – is also so much more than a straightforward scare-fest. It’s celebrated, for one thing, as the film which kicked off the modern zombie genre. Romero may not have considered his walking corpses to have much in common with the reanimated creatures of Caribbean folklore – previously given a Hollywood outing in films like 1932’s White Zombie – but the name soon stuck. Night was followed by five Romero-directed sequels, a remake, and countless imitators, parodies and innovative new takes on the concept – including the popular comic book and TV series The Walking Dead (famously dismissed by the late director himself as ‘a soap opera with a zombie occasionally’). Rules were established – zombies would walk, not run, and must be dispatched by targeting the brain – and later broken. Sprinting, speedy zombies emerged as a daring twist, before the more leisured old-school model became fashionable anew. For half a century, our appetite for reanimated dead bodies (or at least for stories about reanimated dead bodies) has been voracious – and it was Night of the Living Dead that brought it all to life. The film has also endured, however, because of its social and political resonance; the way it exploits the confusion of its era and transforms it into a tangible, dangerously immediate reality. In 1968, it felt as if the world – a restless place at the best of times – was in turmoil. The Cold War was at its height and fears of nuclear apocalypse were rife; the film Dr Strangelove, which satirised the grim absurdity of the “mutually assured destruction” situation, had been released four years earlier. The ongoing Vietnam War and the protests it was causing had split the USA, exposing an ideological gap between generations. For the first time, too, the conflict had been played out on television screens, via nightly news bulletins, earning it the moniker “the living-room war”. Thanks to TV, horror was no longer the preserve of cosy escapist fiction: it was instant, insistent and loudly blaring out inside your home. One filmmaker, intrigued by the possibilities of this pervasive new medium and by the blurring of entertainment and reality, decided to incorporate real protests into his film, making his actors play out a fictional

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script alongside demonstrating crowds in Chicago in the summer of 1968. The result was Haskell Wexler’s enigmatic 1969 Medium Cool, in which cinéma vérité-style “authenticity” – a concept which the film relentlessly questions – is blended with the story of a TV cameraman and his relationship with a young mother. But Night of the Living Dead, released almost a year previously, has a similar fascination with the television age – and, despite its status as a comparatively simple genre film, plays similarly sophisticated games with our perception of camera-captured reality. After Barbra manages to escape her graveyard attacker – her sibling, alas, is left behind – she meets the resourceful Ben (Duane Jones), teenage couple Tom and Judy, a husband and wife named Harry and Helen Cooper, and their young daughter, Karen. Hiding out in a remote cottage, the group barricade themselves in – and, after finding a television set, frantically watch the local news bulletins together. It’s in these scenes that the eerie echoes of real-world confusion are most evident. The group learn from the television that the bodies of people who have recently died are coming back to life, complete with monstrous appetite for flesh, and that radiation from space (another classic fear of the time) might be to blame. It might not, however: no one really knows anything. There aren’t any answers, and all that’s left is paranoid speculation, aggression and discord – and the voice of the TV news.

In addition to this, the black and white film (a side-effect of the budget constraints, rather than a stylistic decision) and the raw, immediate style of the filming help create a documentary feel. There’s a nervous, unpredictable mood, an ever-present sense that our eyes will be assaulted by something disturbing. Many critics have read the film as a loose parallel of Vietnam-era violence, and as a metaphor for a more general breakdown of certainty. But it’s the explicit nature of the gore – the way it shocks the audience, pulling them into the frame and forcing them to viscerally experience things like the eating of a human hand, or a zombie suddenly guzzling down a grub – that intensifies this quality. After the film was first released in cinemas, premiering on 1 October 1968, some critics were outraged by just how much Romero chose to linger on the cannibalism and violence. But only a horror film, and only one as unashamedly gory as this, could have captured the age of TV news and Vietnam so well. Because of this, Night of the Living Dead – while inescapably, intrinsically a film of its time – speaks strongly to our own era. We might turn to Twitter for our news rather than the television, but we still absorb daily images and videos of violence: a numbing barrage of atrocities. Later zombie films, including Romero’s 1978 shopping mall-set Dawn of

the Dead, would address issues such as capitalism and consumer culture much more explicitly. But Night, modest in scope and claustrophobically focused on a small group, captures a panicked sense of a world spiralling out of control – and the familiar feeling that no one has any idea what is really going on, or what to do. The other way, of course, in which Night of the Living Dead links both 1968 and our own era is in its confrontation of race. Unusually for a film of the time (especially a film where race isn’t a key part of the script or story), lead actor Jones – whose character Ben is brave, practical and decisive – was black. His casting, and his powerful performance, imbue the film with new significance – and so too does his status as the last man standing. He’s tougher than the others – perhaps, one might surmise, because he’s had to spend his entire life being tougher – and it’s this which enables him to hold on as the horde closes in. He’s not an uncomplicated hero. He knocks out Barbra, albeit to save her life by preventing her from running outside, and is forced to kill the blustering, antagonistic Harry (Karl Hardman) after the latter turns on him. But he’s the most likable character by far, and the one we root for – right up until the moment he dies at the end of the film, shot by a group of armed locals who mistake him for a zombie. Jones, who died in 1988, modified the scripted role somewhat, drawing upon his classical training to portray the character as an intelligent, articulate, educated man. But he was adamant that the film’s downbeat ending should remain unchanged. ‘I convinced George that the black community would rather see me dead than saved, after all that had gone on, in a corny and symbolically confusing way,’ the actor said in a past interview. ‘The heroes never die in American movies. The jolt of that and the double jolt of the hero figure being black seemed like a double-barrelled whammy.’ It’s a double-barrelled whammy indeed. In 1960s America, the Civil Rights movement was making great strides forward, as black people fought for dignity, respect and equal treatment – but the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., six months before the film’s release, was a shocking reminder that they were battling ugly, overt hatred as well as underlying structural racism. It was a dangerous time to be black – and this fact adds unvoiced tension to Ben’s situation as a black man locked in an enclosed space with a group of white people, one of whom (Harry) is openly hostile towards him. It also adds a haunting edge of doubt to the film’s ending. Were those gun-toting white men sure that Ben was a zombie before they shot – or did they clock a black man and decide that, where African Americans were concerned, it was better to be safe than sorry? Fifty years on – as young black men are still killed by law enforcement officials and protests to remind the world that ‘Black Lives Matter’ feel horrifyingly necessary – the question is no less urgent. None of this, admittedly, was intentional. Jones was cast, quite simply, because he gave the best audition, and no changes were made to the script on account of his race. Harry, blustering and petty, seems like the kind of the character who may well have been prejudiced – but he never uses racist language or insults. Nor was the ending, with all its grim connotations, intended as a deliberate metaphor. ‘Well, the question of race was the furthest thing from my mind,’ Romero would later reveal in an interview with

Little White Lies. ‘When John Russo and I wrote the screenplay, he [Ben] was a white guy, we didn’t change the script… The same things happened to him when he was white, the redneck posse came and shot him, because they thought he was a zombie, not because they knew he was black. ‘It was an accident really, in the end a happy accident,’ he added, speaking of the film’s resonance in the specific area of race. ‘The night we drove the first print to New York we heard on the radio that King had been assassinated, so of course the film immediately took on a completely different slant.’ Accident or not, that depressing ending, and those horrifying final images, as Ben becomes just another corpse, are impossible to shake off. Filmmaker Jordan Peele, whose acclaimed 2017 horror film Get Out explicitly was about race, has cited Night of the Living Dead as one of his key influences. Important as these subtexts are, however, it’s worth remembering that Romero’s very first feature has remained a part of our collective cultural history not just because of its political significance, but because it’s a gripping, satisfyingly blood-and-bodyparts-stuffed horror film – and something of a sacred text to zombie aficionados. It’s repeatedly screened, across the UK, at festivals and Halloween events geared towards horror fans rather than academics and film historians. Some of these screenings are immersive, encouraging audience members to dress as zombies and take part in pre-cinema live theatre. One open-air showing, at Dudley Castle on 3 August, promises fans that they’ll be ‘sat amongst the castle ruins, ankles dangerously close to the ground, from where zombies could quite easily burst forth at any moment...’. Forthcomings events this Scalarama include a 15 September screening by Rhyl Wicked Cinema in Wales and a 27 September screening by Liverpool Horror Club at LJMU Screen School. As October rolls on, there’ll doubtless be many more. The language used to promote these events, invariably, is fun, accessible and irreverent. Ultimately, of course, this is just as it should be. The film’s political allegories speak to our own age, fierce and true – but they wouldn’t have so much of an impact if they didn’t creep up on us as part of a relentless, fleshmunching horde; if they didn’t ram themselves home with guts and gore and Bosco Chocolate Syrup blood. Night of the Living Dead isn’t just a horror film that happens to have an important subtext. All its political power lies in its horror. @Becki_Hawkes

NEW Simon Brand goes long on the undersung filmography of Yoshishige Yoshida, and assesses his role in Japanese cinema.

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In the 1960s, social unrest was rising worldwide as workers, students and society’s forgotten rose in protest against war, imperialism and capitalism. Japan was not immune, and alongside the social turbulence grew what has come to be known as the Japanese New Wave. As opposed to the French New Wave, what sprouted up in Japan was not so much an organised school of thought as a thematic and stylistic tendency shared by a number of Japanese filmmakers. The works produced were radical in both form and content, focusing on youth in revolt, worker insurrection and sexual liberation, and heavily experimenting with narrative and editing techniques.

GHT,

Rather than rising from under the feet of the studio system, the Japanese New Wave was inadvertently conceived by major Japanese production companies like Nikkatsu and Shochiku. If video killed the radio star, then in the ’60s, television was killing the movie star. Profits and attendance were down, and the only thing that could buoy them up was appealing to the nation’s youth demographic. Younger directors were taken in by the big studios in order to revitalise the industry, and cinemagoers were introduced to some of the future big names in the movement: Nagisa Oshima, Shohei Imamura, Masahiro Shinoda, Seijun Suzuki and Yoshishige Yoshida.

September 1-30, 2018

this was the day in which Yoshida finished the editing for a film about disillusioned youths – his debut, Goodfor-nothing (Rokudenashi, 1960). Thematically, Yoshida’s studio-era works fit snugly into the Japanese New Wave. Disillusioned youth, corrupt corporations, love affairs, workers uprisings – all are represented. Eventually it became clear that his style of filmmaking was not aligning with Shochiku’s desire for commercial success. He was half-forced to leave after the studio butchered the ending to Escape from Japan (Nihon dasshutsu, 1964), replacing a scene of the main character going mad with something more palatable. Yoshida only found out after returning from his honeymoon with one of Japan’s greatest actresses, Mariko Okada.

THOU

Okada is a near constant presence in Yoshida’s films. She first appeared in Mikio Naruse’s lesser-known The Dancer (Maihime, 1951), and has since performed in over 100 films spanning seven decades, working with some of Japan’s best filmmakers. Yoshida consistently places her characters into complex relationships with the other characters: in love with a dying man, blackmailed with nude photos taken by a lover, a sporadic affair with a Japanese man lost in Europe, desiring her sperm donor over her sterile husband. The most reductionist view of Yoshida’s work could be Okada having complex affairs against a variety of political and emotional landscapes, scattered throughout time like some intertextual take on Last Year at Marienbad.

NEW

The themes that would become common in the New Wave were apparent at the beginning of the 1960s. Oshima’s Cruel Story of Youth (Seishun zankoku monogatari, 1960) is aptly named and plays against a backdrop of extortion, violence and protest. The Warped Ones (Kyônetsu no kisetsu, 1960) is another freewheeling explosion of angry teenagers. Pigs and Battleships (Buta to gunkan, 1961) throws similar characters in with the remnants of post-war US occupation.

This is around the time Yoshishige (a.k.a. Kiju) Yoshida first took up directorial duties at Shochiku. Although he has made nearly 20 features, many of which are among the best the country has to offer, Yoshida is nowhere near as revered as his contemporaries. Some of this may be due to the lack of home media distribution. Just looking at the Criterion Collection, there are nine films by Oshima, seven by Suzuki, five by Imamura, four by Shinoda and none by Yoshida. Before the Criterion releases, these directors all had films available from other distributors, but the first time Yoshida’s films were made available in the UK or USA was with Arrow Academy’s 2015 ‘Love + Anarchism’ box set, which bundles Eros + Massacre (Erosu purasu gyakusatsu, 1969), Heroic Purgatory (Rengoku eroica, 1970), and Coup d’Etat (Kaigenrei, 1973). In May and June 1960, demonstrations were ongoing against the revision to the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty (known as “Anpo”). These protests were one of the catalysts of the new wave. Tensions peaked on 15 June, when students stormed the parliament building, resulting in multiple deaths. By some coincidence,

Europe. He is obsessed with a Cathedral built by the Portuguese in Nagasaki before being destroyed as a result of the 1635 Sakoku Edict, and believes that the design it was based on must exist somewhere in Europe. The core of both characters are shaped by the effects of war and imperialism, and have become as inalienable as their connection to their own homeland.

After leaving Shochiku, Yoshida managed to get funding for his next work from a producer of pre-feature news films before eventually forming his own independent production company. In this period, 1965-69, his works became more focused on relationships and sexual liberation, more formally experimental and less concerned with what he called the ‘cathartic emotional exchange’ that characterised so many films. In 1968, social unrest was heightened across the world as the young New Left moved against political repression, imperialism, war and numerous national social injustices. At this time, Yoshida was making one of his most polarising and bizarre films, Farewell to the Summer Light (Saraba natsu no hikari, 1968). The film was filmed all around Europe and was funded by Japan Airlines, apparently in an attempt to show off all the wonderful destinations to which it could transport Japanese tourists. Yoshida used the opportunity to create a complex study of national identity and subtly brings in several issues that were global concerns at the time. Mariko Okada plays a Japanese woman living in Paris with an American husband, haunted by the bombing of Nagasaki, searching for some meaning across Europe. Complicating the thread of nationality, her husband is played by a Frenchman who is dubbed in the most terrible (perhaps intentionally) stilted English. The man with whom Okada inevitably has an affair is also a native of Japan travelling

Yoshida’s work only grew more overtly political as the New Wave’s star waned in the ’70s. He started having his films co-produced by the Art Theatre Guild, which became one of the most important organisations in the New Wave, creating more than 70 films, many of which were linked to the movement. Eros + Massacre (Erosu purasu gyakusatsu, 1969), arguably Yoshida’s greatest film, is a three-hour-plus biography of 1920s anarchist revolutionary Sakae Osugi. The film cuts between historical events from Osugi’s time and students in the ’60s examining his ideas and how they apply to modern Japan. Yoshida forces viewers to consider the relationship between the past, present, and future, to see how ideas can challenge the state, and how the state reacts to the challenge. It is one of the most representative films of the New Wave, connecting the social unrest of the time to a historical context, examining the relationship between sexual liberation and radicalism, all filmed with Yoshida’s unique style of framing and avant-garde approach to filmmaking. Continuing his examination of revolutionaries, Yoshida made what is easily his most challenging and experimental film, Heroic Purgatory (Rengoku eroica, 1970). He uses the story of a man looking back at his time in a tumultuous Communist group as the jumping off point for bizarre dreamlike sequences, distortions in time and space, and some of the best black and white photography committed to film. But the New Wave, as with all artistic movements, had to die sometime. As the ’70s began, funding grew scarce, and most directors associated with the New Wave moved off into other areas, like international productions (Oshima), documentaries (Imamura) or more conventional pictures (Shinoda). Yoshida made two more films in the ’70s, then nothing for over a decade.

The Japanese New Wave is a fascinating example of how art reflects its sociopolitical context, and how in times of disillusionment, artistic form is pushed forward in rebellion against what has come before. Yoshishige Yoshida was one of the movement’s greatest and most important artists, but has been somewhat forgotten in the West. More of his filmography should be made available; hopefully Arrow’s box-set release in 2015 was only the beginning.

Strangest Things Film Club presents Heroic Purgatory at Leith Depot, Edinburgh on Monday 10 September @TartanLlama

September 1-30, 2018

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September 1-30, 2018

A VIEW FROM ABROAD

Ehsan Khoshbakht: Italy How did you get into film programming? I started a film club in my hometown, a tiny place on the map somewhere in northeast Iran called Bojnord. It was shut down after the fourth or fifth screening because we showed a film whose writer was a Marxist. That shattered my dreams and was almost like a trauma. In which countries have you been a film programmer, and how were those experiences different? I’ve done projects in the Middle East and northern Europe, but mostly in Italy, or to be more precise, in Bologna and its annual international film festival, Il Cinema Ritrovato. I guess the major difference between my gigs in Bologna and the ones elsewhere is that in Bologna I have to think totally internationally; the audience comes from 70 different countries, but in Tehran or Helsinki I know I’m doing it for a more homogeneous audience. Good films are received well everywhere but the diversity of views is something you feel strongly in Bologna. The cultural differences, I guess, are the main thing. I’m making a documentary about Iranian pre-revolutionary mainstream cinema. So far I’ve shown the work-in-progress version in four different countries. In the first stop, the cinematheque of Copenhagen, people had a good time laughing to the badtaste sex scenes; but the second audience, in Basel, was surprisingly more reserved. A Swiss friend told me that people are not comfortable laughing at the vulgar and the grotesque in that country. Well, their loss. In Copenhagen you have this long history of sexploitation films and, generally speaking, being easy with your body. That made a huge difference to the way my film was received. What are the main differences between programming in Italy/elsewhere and programming in the UK? Well, my experience in Italy is limited to Il Cinema Ritrovato and I don’t know much about what’s happening elsewhere in the country, but the miracles that happen in Bologna can hardly happen anywhere else in the world. There was a film we screened this year, a protofeminist silent film called The Woman Under Oath by John M. Stahl, a beautiful work from 1919. I saw the film earlier in the year at BFI Southbank. There were some 60 people in the audience, which I guess is the maximum pull of that kind of film in London – a very good number of people for a not very well-known silent film. But in Bologna we had a full house, 350 people saw it, and then there was this buzz – discussions and enthusiasm to see more of Stahl’s films. That enables the festival to be more daring, experimental and diverse. No marketing guys getting nervous, just great cinema without any compromise.

September 1-30, 2018

SCALARAMA

Vibrant though the UK cinema scene is, it’s often interesting to look outside of our ‘sea-walled garden’. In this article, we catch up with film programmers from Italy, France and Nigeria to find out how they’ve done things.

But you can find responsive audience in places you never imagine, like a jazz and film programme I co-curated in Ankara. The cinema was full most of the time, and a great number of our audience were women, which challenges the notion that jazz is mostly favoured by men. What’s in the pipeline for you as a programmer? Jonathan Rosenbaum and I are doing a late November programme called ‘Outsider Films on America’: films about America made by non-Americans, which is for a festival in Ankara called Festival on Wheels (it usually tours other Turkish cities as well). Around the same time, I’m hoping to put together a Finnish film history retrospective in London. I also have my own documentary to finish. And then of course the preparation for the next edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato is a full-time thing in terms of the sheer volume of films to be viewed. I think I need another pair of eyes to stay in the race.

Ehsan Khoshbakht is a critic, film historian and jazz scholar as well as the programmer of Il Cinema Ritrovato (Cinema Rediscovered) film festival in Bologna. You can follow him at @EhsanKhoshbakht.

Suzy Gillett: France/UK How did you get into film programming? In 2000 I started a film club in a cooperative pub in Clapham, the Bread & Roses – borrowing a projector from an NGO every week and then applying for a grant to buy a projector, which we then housed in the pub and rented back to the pub so they could project the football. So we made money on the projector! It actually started as a kids’ film club, to absorb the overflow of people from the pub downstairs. But we were screening increasingly interesting films, and losing our child audiences, and the people from downstairs who had come to hear music were coming upstairs to watch the films. I would go to Paris, source a film that had yet to be distributed in the UK, bring it back, and screen it. The Ritzy Cinema in Brixton got wind of it, and asked me to do my projections there. I had no idea that that was possible! I was working with an NGO guy – I was doing the programming, he was borrowing the projectors and things like that. We used to sell out our Tuesdays nights showing documentaries. So what we learned about screening one-off events at the pub was basically how to do marketing. Coming from France, where the choice of film in cinemas was so great, back to London where it was kind of impoverished… really quite shocking how little stuff was getting screened outside of the BFI and festivals.

What are the differences between film programming/distribution in France and the UK? In France there’s a much bigger network of independent cinemas. So you have your multiplexes and Picturehouseesque chains, as well as hundreds of small cinemas, each run with the vision of the one person that runs them. So there’s this incredible diversity of film programmes, in and outside of Paris – even in small towns. And the way films are distributed, they get labelled as a mainstream film or an arthouse film. There’s even a separate circuit of films that go through the arthouse circuit, or they’re labelled mainstream and they go to the multiplexes. It’s quite structured, because there are so many films and cinemas. France has the French Association of Arthouse Cinemas; we don’t have that in the UK. Are there any advantages to film programming in the UK compared to France? Because of our lack of arthouse cinemas in the UK, we’ve had to go slightly underground – this parallel system that is actually much freer, in a way. This whole trend of young programmers in the UK is interesting, and I’m not sure there’s a comparable phenomenon in France. Obviously young people can work in cinemas and programme there, but I’m not sure how frequent it is for people to just get up and start screening films in places in the way that we’re forced to in the UK. It’s created its own ecosystem of [places] like the Deptford Cinema – it is itself the result of the lack of something. Have you programmed abroad? I did programme something for the Marrakech Biennale, which was interesting – suddenly you become responsible for technical matters [as well as programming matters]. You have to know how to do projection, for instance. You have to be quite an allrounder. You can’t stand around saying ‘I’ve selected these films’ and have minions run around for you. You have to do it all yourself!

Suzy Gillett teaches film programming for seven months a year to the Barbican Young Programmers in London. She is also a screenwriter. You can follow her at @gillettsuzy. Photo credit: Elisabeth Roger/ALCA

Derin Ajao: Nigeria

programmes after a brief hiatus, and I’d been discussing the possibilities with the Institut’s former director, Marc-André Schmachtel. He agreed and said I should make a selection for the planned programme, which took place in January 2014. The three-day event was my first opportunity to programme films along a particular line and for a wider audience. Tell me about your experiences as a film programmer in Nigeria. What kind of work have you done? It has been interesting watching the scene blossom, and the different platforms that one can be involved in. It’s also interesting for me because I was and still occasionally function as a film critic and arts journalist. So, there is sometimes the question of ‘would you recommend/screen a film you didn’t like?’. As a programmer, most of what I’ve done has been due to or within the context of my work at Goethe-Institut. At some point, part of this was in conjunction with the Lagos Film Society, an independent film club that was established by the Institut, as well as FILM Sundays and Cinema Mon Amour, all of which the Institut supported in their early stages. Over time, I went on to co-curate and co-organise a Fassbinder retrospective, a Halloween film weekend featuring thrillers and horror movies from Germany and Nigeria, and a programme on domestic violence and the brutality of war. There was also an international symposium on film archives (where pioneer Nigerian filmmaker Ola Balogun showed two of his films), and a music documentary showcase in cooperation with the British Council, amongst others. In 2015, I and a participant from the CICAE Cinema Management training also did a “curation exchange” where he proposed a Greenlandic music documentary that was screened in Nigeria, and I recommended one from Nigeria for screening in Greenland. Film-wise, the emphasis at the Institut has shifted a little towards a stronger focus on the Goethe Film Club, which showcases German classics and contemporary films at weekly screenings. However, the Institut still supports film screening initiatives like FILM Sundays, and the IREP International Documentary Film Forum, which organises the monthly IREP Xchange and the annual IREP Documentary Film Festival. Since 2012, I’ve produced and edited the festival’s daily newsletter, which is published by Goethe-Institut.

How did you get into film programming? A few months after joining GoetheInstitut, I got the chance to curate a three-day film programme featuring films from Germany (Fritz Lang, Werner Herzog, Fatih Akin, Tom Tykwer) and Africa (Djo Munga, Tosh Gitonga) highlighting crossgenerational, cross-cultural filmmaking. We wanted to revive the film-screening

What are the main differences between film programming in Nigeria and the UK? To be honest, I’m not that familiar with the UK scene but from the little I know, I’d say there’s more support and existing infrastructure for programmers than there currently is in Lagos. Of course, there is the global

issue of funding but there are still options that are much harder to come by in Lagos or Nigeria, in general. There’s also, I dare say, less of an understanding of a film programmer’s role than you’d probably find in the UK, where the opportunities to experiment are numerous. With the BFI being just one example, the UK – to take the region broadly – boasts many long-standing public and private arts institutions consistently running well-curated programmes. Not to talk of the different trainings available in the UK and Europe for aspiring programmers. In Lagos, particularly for independent curators or arthouse exhibitors, there are challenges of space, equipment support, funding and knowledge transfer. Festivals also face similar issues but arguably no more than once a year, unlike film clubs, which screen films regularly. The Nigerian Film Corporation in Lagos now offers its space for free, but organisers still have to cover running costs (diesel, film licenses etc.) and bring their own screening equipment. Making a profit is also impossible for most, as they rarely charge for such screenings. Even in the absence of a gate fee, the programmed films remain in search of a share of the audiences that throng commercial cinemas to stay up to date with the latest blockbusters. The competition with cinemas is too huge to quantify, as the scale is already tipped in their favour. On the bright side, there are various initiatives popping up. Now there remains the question of cultivating an audience that both understands and appreciates film programming outside the calendar of box-office hits. What’s in the pipeline for you as a programmer? At the Institut, the Goethe Film Club continues till the end of the year. I’m more of a “fringe” curator since it’s basically run by the Language and Library Departments. But outside of this, I’m looking at alternative spaces around Lagos with which to collaborate regarding additional screenings of a more global nature.

Derin Ajao is Programme Assistant at Goethe-Institut in Lagos, and is also a journalist and film critic. You can follow her at @theveryderin.

SCALARAMA

September 1-30, 2018

Arjun Sajip reviews some of the best cinemas that have popped up in England and Scotland in the last three years.

A NEW WAVE

2015 was a great year for London cinemas appearing out of nowhere. A veritable cinephile’s mecca, Close-Up (closest Tube: Liverpool Street, or Shoreditch High Street on the Overground) harbours a mind-boggling selection of films, books about films and books that inspired films, of which “Library Members” (£10/month, or £8/month for students) can borrow up to three at a time. Cinema membership (£40/year, or £60/year for couples/ twosomes) is different: you get film tickets for £6 (non-members pay £10), and the programming is wonderful. July, for instance, saw a retrospective of Edward Yang (he of Yi Yi), a ‘closeup’ on Kaneto Shindo (featuring his atmospheric horrors Onibaba and Kuroneko as well as his singular bucolic documentary The Naked Island), and a typically conceptual season centred around faces (including Eyes Without a Face, Seconds, The Face of Another, The Skin I Live In and 1929’s The Phantom of the Opera). The venue is also lovely – there’s a couch, an absurdly comfortable armchair, and a Wi-Fi-connected outdoor backyard. The music’s usually great there too. On the website, until recently, all film stills were black and white regardless of whether the film itself was. Classic Shoreditch.

Also in 2015 arrived an absolute gem: Deptford Cinema (closest Tube: Deptford Bridge, on the DLR line). It’s a notfor-profit cinema, volunteer-run, with all proceeds reinvested into keeping the venue afloat and optimising its programme – an eclectic one, thanks to the cinema being supported by various national institutes (including the Korean Cultural Centre, the London Confucius Institute and the Goethe Institute). All tickets are £6 (£4.50 for concessions, including anyone who lives in Brockley, Lewisham Central

or New Cross). The programming is excellent: listings for September so far include a strand of early films by Olivier Assayas (best known for Irma Vep, Clouds of Sils Maria, Personal Shopper and the TV miniseries Carlos) as well as a screening of Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. The cinema’s biggest perk: you can have a say in what gets screened there. Every Sunday at 11am, there’s a volunteers’ meeting at the cinema, making programming a hands-on delight (though it helps to be a regular-ish attendee). The downside of all this is that the cinema is very much a “local”, and will be a lengthy commute for most. Moving further south, there’s Depot in Lewes, Sussex (closest train station: Lewes). Founded in 2017, it features – alongside mainstream fare such as Incredibles 2 and Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again – thoughtful strands such as a diptych based on John Fowles novels (The Collector and The French Lieutenant’s Woman). These films and many others, including some of the new indie releases, come accompanied by an introduction. There are more obvious seasons too; July saw the programming of four digitally restored classics for the ‘Vietnam 50 Years On’ season (it was the four you’d expect). Depot’s approach to inclusivity and the communal aspects of moviegoing is best exemplified by its recent six-night Queer Cinema season, which included well-known films such as John Waters’s Female Trouble as well as shorts and experimental films made by local cineastes. All films had introductions, natch, but the venue’s gallery space was (and is) used for post-film discussions. In September you

can look forward to a mini Agnès Varda season and screenings of Strangers on a Train and Singin’ in the Rain (don’t those titles just read so well together?). Tickets are youngsterfriendly – £4 for under-25s, though once you hit 25 you’ll generally be paying £8-£9. Nestled deep in the wild, wild west – that is to say, Penzance – is the Newlyn Filmhouse (closest train station: Penzance, but that’s a half-hour walk away). I particularly admire it for its NO FOOD policy: only drinks and icecream are allowed into the screens. The two-screen cinema appeared in 2016, making it Newlyn’s first cinema since 1905. Membership is worth it, just about – £30/year gets you two ‘free’ full-price £8.50 tickets, plus £1 off subsequent tickets, so you’d make your money back if you went once a month. Kids pay £6.50, but there are no other concession rates. The establishment has put thought into being access-friendly, and won the Best Inclusive Building award in 2017 at the Local Authority Building Awards for the Southwest. Live theatre, opera and ballet are prominent mainstays alongside mainstream fare and high-profile foreign films. There are repertory screenings: at the time of writing, there’s Kill Bill: Volume 1, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and Godard’s Goodbye to Language within a fortnight of each other, and every Monday evening the Penwith Film Society screens a film, many of which are old classics. Freelance programmers and film clubs could try putting on some more challenging screenings there, though

there may have to be some audiencebuilding first. Glasgow’s Seamore Neighbourhood Cinema (closest underground station: St George’s Cross) is an exciting prospect. As can be surmised from the name, there’s a strong community feel. Children’s tickets are free throughout July and August, there are singalong events (just last night, at the time of writing, there was a The Greatest Showman singalong) and ‘Pizza and a Picture’ nights (£6 for a film and unlimited pizza) are a speciality. Tickets are generally a fiver. There are ‘Silver Screenings’ for the retired – the Elvis Presley vehicle Viva Las Vegas, for instance, was recently screened on a Tuesday afternoon for £4, with soup and a sandwich included. And Scalarama Glasgow will be having its 2018 launch party there, with a screening of Hedwig and the Angry Inch on 1 September, preceded by live performances from local drag acts and followed by a night of dance (and karaoke, of course). It’s suggested that you come ‘dressed to transgress’. @ArjSaj

September 1-30, 2018

SCALARAMA

LISTINGS Welcome to Scalarama 2018! And what a momentous year it is, as Scalarama returns to its roots and celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Scala Cinema (and the 25th anniversary of its closure). The spirit of this iconic London picture palace lives on throughout the land as cinemas, film clubs and festivals set their projectors in motion and screen a cornucopia of movies this September. Also marking the 50th anniversary of 1968, there is a theme of Uprising in this year’s selections, plus our continuing partnership with Directed by Women converges with Curzon Artificial Eye’s tour of newly restored films by Agnès Varda. Check out reports from some of the Scalarama coordinators and remember it’s never too late to submit events to Scalarama – visit scalarama.com/submit for more information. For full and up to date listings visit scalarama.com/events and keep your eyes peeled for special announcements regarding National Lottery Cinema Day on Sunday 30 September – a day of free cinema for Lottery ticket holders!

SCALEDONIA

SOUTH EAST

BO’NESS................. 32

SCALARAMA SUSSEX........ 36

EDINBURGH............... 32

BRIGHTON................ 36

GLASGOW................. 32

HOVE.................... 36 LEWES................... 36

HIGHLANDS ARRAN................... 33 BENBECULA............... 33 CROMARTY................ 33 INVERNESS............... 33 LOCHGILPHEAD............ 33

SEAFORD................. 36 SHOREHAM BY SEA......... 36 WORTHING................ 36 CANTERBURY.............. 36 ST IVES................. 36 LONDON.................. 37

MUIR OF ORD............. 33 SKYE.................... 33

SOUTH WEST BATH.................... 38

NORTH HALIFAX................. 33 HEBDEN BRIDGE........... 33 LEEDS................... 33

BOURNEMOUTH............. 38 BRISTOL................. 38 PORTSMOUTH.............. 38 TORRINGTON.............. 38

LIVERPOOL............... 34 MANCHESTER.............. 35

WALES

RAWTENSALL.............. 35

RHYL.................... 38

SHEFFIELD............... 35 WARRINGTON.............. 35

NORTHERN IRELAND BELFAST................. 38

MIDLANDS COVENTRY................ 35 LEICESTER............... 35 MALVERN................. 35 NOTTINGHAM.............. 35 STANWICK................ 35

SCALARAMA

September 1-30, 2018

SCALEDONIA BO’NESS VENUE Hippodrome Cinema, 10 Hope Street, Bo’ness, EH51 0AA – Venue is wheelchair accessible.

Saturday 15 September 7:30PM Hippodrome Silent Film Festival presents The Lodger (PG) £13.50/£11 Subtitled. Free ticket for carers. Concessionary prices Saturday 29 September 7:30PM Hippodrome Silent Film Festival presents The General (U) £13.50/£11 Subtitled. Free ticket for carers. Concessionary prices

EDINBURGH EDINBURGH VENUES

Cinema UP Collective: Radical Home Cinema presents Simon Brand at Scalarama Simon Brand’s Home FREE Subtitled Thursday 20 September 7:00PM Cinetopia Edinburgh presents Pioneers & Preservers Gallery 23 £4/£5 Friday 21 September 7:00PM Curious Cat Cinema Club presents A Hard Day’s Night (1964) The Art Station £5 Subtitled. Free ticket for carers

Scalarama events. However, the fire at the nearby Glasgow School of Art means no access to the CCA until September and potentially later, affecting scores of film events and leaving some Scalarama events in jeopardy. Thankfully, however, people have rallied and alternative venues have been found. All of which means September will be a fantastic showcase for what’s happening year-round in Glasgow – besides all the incredible events we have in store exclusively for Scalarama.

@ScalaGlasgow

The Britannia Panopticon Music Hall, 117 Trongate, Glasgow, G1 5HD CCA Glasgow, 350 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, G2 3JD – Venue is wheelchair accessible.

Sunday 30 September 5:00PM French Film Festival UK presents Vive le Cinéma at Summerhall: Just To Be Sure (15) Summerhall £5/£7 Subtitled DirectedbyWomen

Fourwalls, 35 Carnarvon Street, Glasgow, G3 6HP – Venue is wheelchair accessible.

Kinning Park Complex, 43 Cornwall Street, Glasgow, G41 1BA – Venue is wheelchair accessible.

Leith Dockers Club, 17-17a Academy St, Edinburgh EH6 7EE

Sunday 30 September 7:30PM Reel Girl Film Club presents Smithereens (1982) (15) Norton Park Conference Centre £5/£7 DirectedbyWomen

Norton Park Conference Centre, 57 Albion Road, Edinburgh, EH7 5QY

GLASGOW

The Art Station, 42 Haymarket Terrace, Edinburgh, EH12 5LA Cameo Cinema, 38 Home Street, Edinburgh, EH3 9LZ – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Gallery 23 (at the English-Speaking Union Scotland), 23 Atholl Crescent, Edinburgh, EH3 8HQ Leith Depot, 138-140 Leith Walk, Edinburgh, EH6 5DT

Simon Brand’s Home, Edinburgh, G4 9BZ Summerhall, 1 Summerhall Pl, Edinburgh, EH9 1PL Tupiniquim, Middle Meadow Walk, Edinburgh, EH3 9AU – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Saturday 1 September 7:00PM Edinburgh Short Film Festival/Scalarama Edinburgh 2018 Launch Party Tupiniquim FREE Suitable for parents/carers with babies Sunday 9 September 7:00PM Cinemaattic presents Justino, A Senior Citizen Killer Leith Dockers Club £7 Subtitled Monday 10 September 7:00PM Strangest Things Film Club presents Heroic Purgatory (15) Leith Depot £4/£6 Subtitled. Free ticket for carers. Concessionary prices Thursday 13 September 8:00PM Welcome to Gin Peaks presents Blue Velvet (18) Leith Depot £8 Friday 14 September 10:00PM Cameo Cinema presents Remake, Remix, Rip-Off + ‘Turkish Star Wars’ Cameo Cinema Remake: Standard Pricing, ‘Turkish Star Wars’: FREE Subtitled. Free ticket for carers. Concessionary prices Monday 17 September 7:30PM

Glasgow has a thriving calendar of festivals, pop-ups, clubs and special events, and this year seemed busier than ever. Matchbox Cineclub, which I programme, debuted ‘Turkish Star Wars 2K’, started a pop-up for anaglyph 3D films and launched two festivals – Cage-a-rama and Weird Weekend. Indie exhibitors such as Blueprint focused on local independent filmmaking; Cinemaattic, specialising in IberoAmerican cinema, also screened yearround. GFF, GSFF, Southside Film Festival, RFN 6818 and Glasgow International brought a host of screenings (including a Scalainspired double bill from Marc Baines), as did smaller festivals including West End Free Film Festival, Queer Classics Film Festival and Popcorn Horror’s Glasgow Horror Festival. And the city gained a whole new screen in Maryhill’s Seamore Community Cinema, which aims to bring affordable and inclusive film events to the area. In terms of film clubs – and this is not an exhaustive list – Pity Party screened the likes of Blue in the Face and Peter Vack’s Assholes; Medieval Movie Club’s eclectic programme included The Devils and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves; Burnt Church Film Club made a name for themselves screening cult favourites; She’s En Scene, open to anyone who identifies as a woman, screened and discussed films made by women; and Southern Exposure focused on the best of New Zealand cinema. Then there’s Café Flicker, the Glad Film Club, Southside Film’s Bad Movie Night, the SWG3 Film Night, Video Namaste and Cinemor77’s roving yurt. The Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA)’s open-source programming has long encouraged a full and vibrant calendar, including festivals like SQIFF, Document, SMHAFF, Glitch and many

Friday 7 September 6:30PM She’s En Scene presents Girlhood ISO Design £3/£5 Subtitled. Concessionary prices DirectedbyWomen

Sean Welsh

GLASGOW VENUES Saturday 22 September 7:00PM Curious Cat Cinema Club presents Across the Universe (2007) (12A) The Art Station £5 Screening offers free ticket for carers DirectedbyWomen

Wednesday 5 September 7:00PM The Britannia Panopticon Music Hall presents Metropolis (PG) The Britannia Panopticon Music Hall £5 Subtitled. Concessionary prices

The Flying Duck, 142 Renfield Street, Glasgow, G2 3AU ISO Design, 65 Virginia Street, Glasgow, G1 1TS

The Old Hairdressers, 20-28 Renfield Lane, Glasgow, G2 6PH Marzanna Antoniak’s Living Room, Temple District, Glasgow Nice N Sleazy, 421 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, G2 3LG Private Venue near Kelvinbridge subway, Flat 2/1 128 Raeberry Street, Glasgow, Glasgow, G20 6EG Richard Martin, 0/2 103 Deanston Drive, Glasgow, G41 3AL Rowan Refuge, 34 Ravenshall Road, Shawlands, Glasgow, G41 3SP The Seamore Community Cinema, 304 Maryhill Road, Glasgow, G20 7YE – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Sloans, The Argyll Arcade,108 Argyle Street, Glasgow, G2 8BG Saturday 11 August 7:00PM Scalarama Glasgow presents John Waters’s Polyester in Odorama! Scalarama 2018 Launch The Seamore Community Cinema FREE Saturday 1 September 8:00PM Pity Party Film Club presents Scalarama Glasgow Opening Party Hedwig & The Angry Inch (15) The Seamore Community Cinema £5 + Booking Fee Monday 3 September 7:00PM Burnt Church Film Club presents They Live! (15) The Flying Duck £5 Tuesday 4 September 6:30PM Eat Film presents Cast Away Sloans £7.50 Wednesday 5 September 7:00PM Southern Exposure presents Forgotten Silver (No cert) ISO Design £3

Saturday 8 September 12:00PM Cinema UP Collective presents Cinerama’s Russian Adventure Richard Martin FREE Sunday 9 September 12:00PM Matchbox Cineclub presents Joe Dante’s The Movie Orgy The Old Hairdressers FREE Tuesday 11 September 6:30PM Eat Film presents Happy Gilmore (18) Sloans £7.50 Suitable for parents/carers with babies Tuesday 11 September 7:30PM Video Namaste presents A Stone Cold VHS Birthday Party (Over 18s only) The Old Hairdressers £5 Thursday 13 September 7:00PM Cinemaattic presents Madrid era una Fiesta (El Futuro + Aliens) (18) The Seamore Community Cinema £8 Subtitled Thursday 13 September 9:00PM Scalarama / Cinemaattic Glasgow Party: Movida Madrileña Afterparty (18) The Seamore Community Cinema FREE Saturday 15 September 10:00AM Cinema UP Collective presents Wee Larches – Kids Film Screening: In the Green Shed Rowan Refuge FREE Sunday 16 September 4:00PM Cinema UP Collective: Radical Home Cinema presents Atlas of Belonging Marzanna Antoniak’s Living Room FREE but ticketed (Eventbrite) Sunday 16 September 6:30PM Burnt Church Film Club presents Inglourious Basterds + Gedeon Burkhard In Person Q&A The Flying Duck £5 Subtitled Monday 17 September 6:30PM Burnt Church Film Club presents The Descent + Shauna Macdonald In Person Q&A The Flying Duck £5 Tuesday 18 September 6:30PM Eatfilm presents Moulin Rouge! (18) Sloans £7.50 Tuesday 18 September 7:00PM Desperate Living Film Club presents Dumplings (18) Nice N Sleazy £5 Subtitled

September 1-30, 2018

SCALARAMA

HIGHLANDS Wednesday 19 September 7:00PM Physical Impossibility presents Show + Tell CCA Glasgow FREE Wednesday 19 September 7:00PM Glasgow Over Plastic presents Albatross Private Venue near Kelvinbridge subway £5 Thursday 20 September 7:00PM Close Up Cineclub presents Hybrid Cinema / Black Sun by Gary Tarn The Flying Duck £3 Friday 21 September 6:30PM ISO Design presents Mustang + Dogtooth double-bill (18) ISO Design £5 Subtitled DirectedbyWomen Friday 21 September 8:00PM Cinema UP Collective: Radical Home Cinema presents 4 Legs Screening (PG) Fourwalls FREE, but ticketed Monday 24 September 7:00PM Video Namaste and Matchbox Cineclub present Video Bacchanal: Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Quiz Me (Over 18s only) The Old Hairdressers FREE Tuesday 25 September 6:30PM Eatfilm presents Clueless (18) Sloans £7.50 DirectedbyWomen Tuesday 25 September 8:00PM MWM presents Harold and Maude (15) The Old Hairdressers £3 Wednesday 26 September 7:00PM ReelScotland presents Taggart ‘83 (12A) The Seamore Community Cinema £5 Thursday 27 September 7:30PM Matchbox Cineclub and Africa In Motion Film Festival present Images of Apartheid + Q&A Kinning Park Complex FREE Subtitled Saturday 29 – Sunday 30 September Blueprint – Scottish Independent Shorts presents Theorem CCA Glasgow FREE Saturday 29 September 6:00PM Cinema UP Collective: Radical Home Cinema presents Secret Screening Secret Venue. Meeting at Kelvinbridge Subway Station at 5.45pm FREE Subtitled Sunday 30 September 5:30PM Burnt Church Film Club presents Gangs of New York + Gary Lewis In Person Q&A (18) The Flying Duck £7 Sunday 30 September 8:00PM World of Film Festival presents Free Shorts Screening + Pre-Festival Party w/ emerging DJs! Nice N Sleazy FREE

Scalarama returns to the North with a vengeance! On the mainland, Cromarty screens a modern classic of indie cinema, Muir of Ord uncorks the vino for a special BYOB screening, and Eden Court – bastion of the arts in Inverness – has all the Mondays in September covered. Reels on wheels will be served across the islands as the Screen Machine brings Bulgarian cinema, Jacques Tati and Isabelle Huppert to Benbecula, Arran and Islay. And up in Skye, things are 100% F-rated (directed and/or written by a woman) with ATLAS Arts’ stellar Screen It events, including a night of trailblazers in Dunvegan Castle. In summary: head North. Neil Hepburn

ARRAN Sunday 23 September 5:30PM Screen Machine presents Films We Love: Cleo from 5 to 7 (PG) Brodick, Isle of Arran, KA27 8AA £3/£5 Venue is wheelchair accessible. Subtitled. Concessionary prices DirectedbyWomen: VARDARAMA

NORTH ISLAY

HALIFAX

Sunday 16 September 5:30PM Screen Machine presents Films We Love: Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (U) Port Ellen, Isle of Islay, PA42 7BD £3/£5 Venue is wheelchair accessible. Subtitled. Concessionary prices

VENUE

LOCHGILPHEAD

MUIR OF ORD

Tuesday 11 September 8:00PM The Invisible Man (PG) £5/£7

Friday 28 September 7:30PM The Muir Hub presents A Good Year (BYOB) (12A) The Muir Hub, Great North Road, Muir of Ord, Muir of Ord, Highland, IV6 7SU £6.50 Venue is wheelchair accessible

Tuesday 4 September 8:30PM Screen Machine presents Films We Love: Urok/The Lesson Liniclate Isle of Benbecula, HS7 5PJ £3/£5 Venue is wheelchair accessible. Subtitled. Concessionary prices DirectedbyWomen

Wednesday 5 September 7:00PM ATLAS Arts: Screen-It presents Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story plus shorts (12A) Dunvegan Castle South Wing, Dunvegan, Isle of Skye, IV55 8WF FREE Venue is wheelchair accessible DirectedbyWomen

CROMARTY

Wednesday 19 September 7:00PM ATLAS Arts Screen-It presents Margaret Tait short films (U) ATLAS Arts, Skye Gathering Hall basement, Bank Street, Portree, Isle of Skye, IV51 9BZ. FREE DirectedbyWomen

Eden Court Theatre, Bishops Rd, Inverness, IV3 5SA, Inverness, IV3 5SA – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Monday 3 September 8:30PM Scalarama Highlands presents If… (50th Anniversary) (15) Eden Court Theatre £6 Screening offers concessionary prices Uprising: 1968 Monday 10 September 6:15PM Scalarama Highlands presents Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time (U) Eden Court Theatre £6 Screening offers concessionary prices Monday 17 September 8:30PM Scalarama Highlands presents Heart of a Dog (PG) Eden Court Theatre £6 Screening offers concessionary prices DirectedbyWomen Monday 24 September 6:15PM Scalarama Highlands presents The Battle of Algiers (15) Eden Court Theatre £6 Screening offers concessionary prices Uprising: 1968

Tuesday 4 September 8:00PM Frankenstein (1931) (PG) £5/£7 Saturday 8 September 2:00PM Some Like It Hot (U) £5/£7

SKYE

INVERNESS

Square Chapel Arts Centre, 10 Square Road, Halifax, West Yorkshire, HX1 1QG – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Free ticket for carers. Concessionary prices.

Sunday 30 September 5:30PM Screen Machine presents Films We Love: Things to Come (12A) Lochgilphead, PA31 8NE £3/£5 Venue is wheelchair accessible. Subtitled. Concessionary prices DirectedbyWomen

BENBECULA

Thursday 20 September 8:00PM Cromarty and Resolis Film Society presents The Florida Project (15) The Old Brewery, Burnside Place, Cromarty The Old Brewery, Burnside Place, Cromarty, Highlands, IV11 8XQ £6 Venue is wheelchair accessible

Saturday 8 September 8:00PM, Sunday 9 September 4:00PM The Miseducation of Cameron Post (15) £5/£7 DirectedbyWomen

Saturday 15 September 8:00PM ‘Turkish Star Wars’ FREE Subtitled

HEBDEN BRIDGE Saturday 22 September 4:30PM Hebden Bridge Picture House presents One Sings, The Other Doesn’t (12A) Hebden Bridge Picture House, New Road, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, HX7 8AD £5/£7 Venue is wheelchair accessible. Subtitled. Concessionary prices DirectedbyWomen: VARDARAMA

LEEDS This year we’re hosting over 30 cinematic events across 18 venues around Leeds and beyond. As well as our usual embarrassment of films popping up throughout September, there’ll be many more exotic cinema-related activities with our partners across the city: a Fictions of Every Kind movie-based literary night, live music for film introductions, an Oxfam cinema quiz, a radio broadcast open mic night, a live audiovisual reimagining of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, and a film-themed Masquerade Ball. Legendary feminist filmmakers the Leeds Animation Workshop are celebrating their 40th anniversary during Scalarama in 2018 with a special programme of animated films on Tuesday 25 September at the Hyde Park Picture House. They’re also at 42 New Briggate Gallery from Wednesday 26 September–Saturday 29 September, with an exhibition and free curated screenings daily from 12:30. The most exciting cinematic development this year has been the ongoing Heritage Lottery-funded Picture House Project. The Hyde Park Picture House, one of the UK’s oldest cinemas, located just outside of Leeds City Centre, has recently been granted planning permission and listed building consent for its ambitious refurbishment and extension project, including a new second screen. Work begins in 2019, and all Leeds’s film-lovers are eagerly awaiting its completion! Read more here: http://thepicturehouseproject.com/ We’re also happy to welcome new Scalarama Leeds venues Gipton Fire Station and Chapel FM, both in East Leeds. Laura Ager & Robb Barham @ScalaramaLeeds

LEEDS VENUES The Brudenell Social Club, 33 Queen’s Road, Leeds, LS6 1NY Chapel FM Arts Centre, Old Seacroft Chapel, York Road, Leeds, LS14 6JB – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Headingley HEART, Bennett Road, Headingley, Leeds, LS6 3HN – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Jumbo Records, 1-3 Merrion Centre, Leeds, LS2 8NG The Hyde Park Picture House, 73 Brudenell Road, Leeds, LS6 1JD Inkwell Arts, 31 Potternewton Lane, Chapel Allerton, Leeds, LS7 3LW – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Left Bank Leeds, Cardigan Road, Leeds, LS6 1LJ – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Oakwood Cinema, Roundhay Parochial Hall, Fitzroy Drive, Leeds, LS8 4AB The Old Fire Station, Gipton Approach, Leeds, LS9 6NL – Venue is wheelchair accessible. The Reliance, 76-78 North Street, Leeds, LS2 7PN Wharf Chambers, Ground Floor, 23 - 25 Wharf Street, Leeds, LS2 7EQ – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Woodhouse Community Centre, 197 Woodhouse Street, Leeds, LS6 2NY Wednesday 15 August 7:30PM Scalarama Leeds and Film Fringe present My Winnipeg: Scalarama Leeds 2018 Programme Launch (12A) Left Bank Leeds Pay-As-You-Feel Saturday 1 September 7:30PM Scalarama Leeds and Film Fringe present 1968 Opening Night Party! (15) The Brudenell Social Club FREE Uprising: 1968 Sunday 2 September 1:00PM Chapel FM Arts Centre presents Flicker+Pulse (U) Chapel FM Arts Centre Pay-What-You-Can Venue is wheelchair accessible Tuesday 4 September 6:30PM Hyde Park Picture House presents Dawson City: Frozen Time Hyde Park Picture House £5.50-£7.80 Thursday 6 September 7:30PM She’s A Rebel presents The Loveless (1981) (18) The Reliance £5 Subtitled DirectedbyWomen Sunday 9 September 3:00PM She’s A Rebel presents Ida Lupino at 100: The Trouble with Angels (1966) (U) The Hyde Park Picture House £3.30/£6 DirectedbyWomen 35mm Monday 10 September 7:30PM She’s A Rebel presents Something Different (1963) (PG) The Reliance £5 DirectedbyWomen Tuesday 11 September 8:00PM Films at Heart presents The Florida Project (15) Headingley £4-£10 Concessionary prices

SCALARAMA

Wednesday 12 September 6:00PM The Reliance presents Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Dinner and a Movie The Reliance £13

Saturday 29 September 8:00PM Oakwood Cinema presents Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Oakwood Cinema £4/£5

Thursday 13 September 6:00PM Inkwell Arts presents Secret Cinema Scalarama Special (15) Inkwell Arts £10

Sunday 30 September 3:00PM Leeds Palestinian Film Festival presents The Wanted 18: Film + Food Fundraiser Woodhouse Community Centre £10 or Pay-As-You-Feel Subtitled

Friday 14 September Doors 10:00AM, Film 11:00AM Memory Matinees presents Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (U) Headingley HEART FREE Screening is dementia friendly Friday 14 September 7:30PM Radio Atlas presents The Double (2015) + experimental silent shorts Chapel FM Arts Centre Pay-What-You-Can Subtitled Saturday 15 September 4:00PM & 7:00PM The Old Fire Station presents The Firefighters’ Story: 100 years of the Fire Brigades Union The Old Fire Station By Donation Screening offers free ticket for carers Sunday 16 September 3:00PM She’s A Rebel presents La Pointe Courte (1955) (PG) The Hyde Park Picture House £5.50/£7.80 Subtitled DirectedbyWomen: VARDARAMA Monday 17 September 7:00PM Leeds Bicycle Film Club presents Off The Beaten Path The Reliance £6 Wednesday 19 September 6.00PM Lost in France Jumbo Records £5 Wednesday 19 September 8:00PM Headingly HEART presents Oxfam Scalarama Special Quiz Night Headingley HEART £1 Thursday 20 September 7:30PM Film Fringe presents Crumb (part of Thought Bubble festival)(18) The Reliance £5 Monday 24 September 7:30PM Fictions of Every Kind presents At the Movies Wharf Chambers £3 Free ticket for carers

LIVERPOOL I cannot hide my excitement that 2018 is going to be a memorable year for Scalarama Liverpool. All those who take part in it have, like me, experienced what I call “Scalafever” – that burning desire to be involved in something big, a communion of collaborators, a demonstration of solidarity and the exchange of ideas to create a carnival of cinematic joy. Scalafever has captured not only our “usual suspects” – Drop The Dumbulls, Metal, Eye Candy, the Liverpool Museums, Empty Spaces Cinema, Merseyside Polonia, Hoylake Cinema Community, InterTitle – but several new members: CineWire, The Kinematic, Liverpool Left Film Club, Liverpool Horror Club, Family Hives, SAE Institute, VideOdyssey and Big Adventure Cinema among others, making Scalarama being the fastest growing DIY celebration of independent film venues in Liverpool. Our programme features a wonderful blend of genres, styles and themes while retaining the organisers’ unique identities, which sums up much of the Scalarama ethos. Our listings include films that chime with Scalarama’s “interests”: from F-rated #directedbywomen and the examination of the role of female characters on the big screen (the ‘Women on the Edge’ season is a great example) to films dedicated to exploring the cinema and the legacy of 1968 (in the ‘Uprising! Spirit of ’68’ season). I am also delighted that the Museums, Family Hive and Little and Young Adventurers are putting young audiences at the centre of their venues with films and workshops, proving once more that Scalarama is for everyone. Finally, I’d like to mention the screenings of DROP The Dumbulls and IndieFlicks paying homage to Liverpool, its history and its new talents. This year I couldn’t be more proud to be part of Scalarama. Thanks to everyone who contributes in any form to reinforce the community spirit through cinema. Monika Rodriguez @ScalaramaLpl

Tuesday 25 September 6:30PM Leeds Animation Workshop presents Women’s Animation From Near And Far Hyde Park Picture House £5.50-£7.80 DirectedbyWomen

LIVERPOOL VENUES

Thursday 27 September 7:30PM fourteen pulsars presents birth; life; death; reflection. (J0835-4510) Left Bank Leeds £4/£5 Concessionary prices

The Caledonia, 22 Caledonia Street, Liverpool, L7 7DX

Friday 28 September 7:30PM Chapel FM Arts Centre presents Open Mic Night: Scalarama Special Chapel FM Arts Centre Donations welcome

81 Renshaw Street, Liverpool, L1 2SJ The Baltic Social, 27 Parliament St, Liverpool, L8 5RN

Dr Martin Luther King Jr Building, Royal Albert Dock, Liverpool, L3 4AQ – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Drop The Dumbulls, 2 Dublin St, Liverpool, L3 7DT – Venue is wheelchair accessible. The Everyman Theatre, Hope Street, Liverpool, L1 9BH – Venue is wheelchair accessible. George Henry Lee, Basnett Street, Liverpool, L1 1ED

September 1-30, 2018

International Slavery Museum, 3rd Floor, Albert Dock, Liverpool, L3 4AX – Venue is wheelchair accessible Liverpool Central Library, William Brown St, Liverpool, L3 8EW – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Black-E, 1 Great George St, Liverpool L1 5EW LJMU Screen School, Redmonds Building, Brownlow Hill, Liverpool, L3 5UG Make, North Docks Unit 1, 34 Regent St, Liverpool, L3 7BN Merseyside Polonia, 5 Covent Garden, Liverpool, L2 8UD Metal at Edge Hill Station, Tunnel Road, Liverpool, L7 6ND Next To Nowhere, 96 Bold Street (basement - ring white bell), Liverpool, L1 4HY – Venue is wheelchair accessible Output Gallery, 32 Seel Street, Liverpool, L1 4BE Picturehouse at FACT, 88 Wood St, Liverpool, L1 4DQ – Venue is wheelchair accessible. SAE Institute UK, Georgia House, 38 Pall Mall, Liverpool, L3 6AL – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Si’s Barbershop, 120 Aigburth Road, Liverpool, L17 7BP Toxteth TV, 37-45 Windsor St, Liverpoool, L8 1XE – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Wednesday 29 August 8:00PM Feel Scala: Scalarama Liverpool 2018 Programme Launch The Baltic Social FREE Saturday 1 September 12:00PM, Friday 7 September 12:00PM, Saturday 8 September 12:00PM, Friday 14 September 12:00PM, Saturday 15 September 12:00PM, Friday 21 September 12:00PM, Saturday 22 September 12:00PM, Friday 28 September 12:00PM, Saturday 29 September 12:00PM Reel Tours presents Liverpool Film Location Walking Tour Starts at Playhouse Theatre, Williamson Square, L1 1EL £15 Saturday 1 September 1:00PM ISM Young Ambassadors present Hidden Figures (12A) International Slavery Museum FREE Young Programmers Saturday 1 September 5:00PM Scalarama Liverpool: Uprising presents Black Panthers & Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 Black-E £5/£4 Saturday 1 September 7:00PM VideOdyssey presents Prince – Purple Celebration Toxteth TV £8/£10 Sunday 2 September 2:00PM Empty Spaces Cinema present Gaslight (PG) George Henry Lee £4/£5 Wednesday 5 September 7:30PM InterTitle present The Psychotronic Man (18) Si’s Barbershop FREE

September 1-30, 2018

SCALARAMA

MIDLANDS Thursday 6 September 7:30PM Empty Spaces Cinema presents The Long Day Closes (PG) Output Gallery £4/£5 Concessionary prices Friday 7 September 7:00PM Liverpool Horror Club presents Intruder (1989) (18) Drop The Dumbulls £6 Sunday 9 September 1:00PM International Slavery Museum presents African Myths and Legends International Slavery Museum FREE Sunday 9 September 2:00PM Empty Spaces Cinema presents Sunset Boulevard (U) George Henry Lee £4/£5 Monday 10 September 6:30PM IndieFlicks Monthly International Short Film Festival (Over 18s only) Picturehouse at FACT £6 Wednesday 12 September 12:00PM SAE Institute Student Creative Fayre SAE Institute UK Thursday 13 September 7:00PM Liverpool Horror Club presents Frankenhooker (1990) (18) 81 Renshaw £6 Thursday 13 September 7:00PM Liverpool Left Film Club presents 1968: A Year That Shaped a Generation The Caledonia FREE Uprising: 1968 Friday 14 September 5:00PM Big Adventure Cinema presents Waiting for Godot + Nothing Comes Of Nothing (or Dramatis Personae) (No Cert) Liverpool Central Library £5 Subtitled DirectedbyWomen Friday 14 September 7:00PM VideOdyssey presents Freaky Friday: Friday the 13th Part 3(15) Toxteth TV £8/£10

Thursday 20 September 7:00PM The Kinematic presents Léon: The Professional (18) Make, North Docks £10 or membership from £35

Friday 28 September 7:00PM VideOdyssey presents Creature Feature!: Godzilla 1985 Toxteth TV £8/£10

Thursday 20 September 8:00PM The Film Book Club presents Mega Movie Quiz In A Theatre The Everyman Theatre £1 per-person

Saturday 29 September 12:00PM Big Adventure Cinema presents Little Adventurers Cinema Club Workshop Venue TBC

Friday 21 September 5:00PM Young Adventurers Cinema presents The Florida Project (15) Liverpool Central Library £4/£5 Concessionary prices Young Programmers Friday 21 September 7:00PM VideOdyssey presents Bill Murray’s Birthday – Life Lessons (15) Toxteth TV £8/£10 Sunday 23 September 10.30AM Family Hive presents Kirikou and the Sorceress + family activities Squash Pay-What-You-Feel Sunday 23 September 2:00PM Empty Spaces Cinema presents Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (15) George Henry Lee £4/£5 Concessionary prices Sunday 23 September 4:00PM Food for Real Festival presents Taking Root Squash Pay-What-You-Feel Directedbywomen, 1968:Uprising Monday 24 September 6:30PM Liverpool Pride@ThePictures present Film TBC Picturehouse at FACT £7.50/FACT Members £5.50 Free ticket for carers. Concessionary prices Monday 24 September 7:00PM Merseyside Animal Rights presents White God (15) Next To Nowhere FREE Subtitled

Saturday 15 September 1:00PM International Slavery Museum presents Concerning Violence International Slavery Museum FREE Uprising: 1968

Thursday 27 September 6:00PM Liverpool Horror Club & LJMU Screen School present Night of the Living Dead (1968) (15) LJMU Screen School £6 Uprising: 1968

Sunday 16 September 2:00PM Empty Spaces Cinema presents Thelma & Louise (15) George Henry Lee £4/£5

Thursday 27 September 6:30PM Reel Merseyside presents A Peoples History Of Liverpool Drop The Dumbulls FREE

Sunday 16 September 5:30PM Big Adventure Cinema and Merseyside Polonia present O!PLA - “Oh! Polish Animation” Merseyside Polonia FREE Subtitled

Thursday 27 September 7:00PM Liverpool Left Film Club presents Herbert’s Hippopotamus: Marcuse and Revolution in Paradise The Caledonia FREE Uprising: 1968

Tuesday 18 September 7:30PM Eye Candy presents Wild in the Streets (1968) (15) Drop The Dumbulls FREE Uprising: 1968

Friday 28 September 6:30PM The Venus Collective presents Screen Queens: The Virgin Suicides (15) Metal at Edge Hill Station £8/£6 Concessionary prices DirectedbyWomen

Wednesday 19 September 6:30PM Metal and Beverley Bennett present Amine and other shorts Metal at Edge Hill FREE DirectedbyWomen

Friday 28 September 7:00PM Reel Merseyside presents Local Shorts 3 Drop The Dumbulls FREE

Sunday 30 September Big Adventure Cinema presents National Lottery Cinema Day Venue and Films TBC FREE Sunday 30 September 2:00PM Merseyside Maritime Museum presents Suffragette (12A) Dr Martin Luther King Jr Building FREE DirectedbyWomen

MANCHESTER Wednesday 5 September 7:30PM IndieFlicks Monthly International Short Film Festival (Over 18s only) Lock 91, 9 Century St, Manchester, M3 4QL £6

RAWTENSALL VENUE The Whitaker, Haslingden Road, Rawtenstall, Rossendale, BB4 6RE – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Thursday 6 September 7:30PM My Generation £6 Thursday 20 September 7:30PM A Fantastic Woman £6.50 Subtitled

SHEFFIELD Wednesday 5 September 7:30PM IndieFlicks Monthly International Short Film Festival (Over 18s only) Sentinel Brewhouse, 178 Shoreham St, Sheffield, S1 4SQ £4

WARRINGTON Friday 14 September 6:30PM Cinewire presents Film Up North Season: Brassed Off (15) Warrington Borough Council, 26-30 Horsemarket Street, WA1 1XL £5/£7 Venue is wheelchair accessible. Free ticket for carers. Suitable for parents/ carers with babies. Concessionary prices Young Programmers

COVENTRY Friday 21 September 7:30PM Bristol Bad Film Club presents Samurai Cop (18) Empire Coventry, 150 Far Gosford Street, Coventry, CV1 5DU £10 adv/£6 adv for students Concessionary prices

LEICESTER VENUE Phoenix Leicester, 4 Midland Street, Leicester, Leicestershire, LE1 1TG – Venue is wheelchair accessible.

Wednesday 19 September 8:00PM ‘Turkish Star Wars’ (18) FREE Tuesday 25 September 6:00PM, Thursday 27 September 6:15PM Atypical: Arcadia (12A) £6-£9

MALVERN Friday 7 September 8:00PM Bristol Bad Film Club presents Samurai Cop (18) Malvern Theatre, Grange Rd, Malvern, WR14 3HB £9

NOTTINGHAM VENUE Savoy Cinema Nottingham 233 Derby Rd, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, NG7 1QN – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Monday 10 September 8:30PM The Loft Movie Theatre & Mayhem Film Festival presents Brain Damage (18) Savoy £4.85-£6.60 Monday 24 September 8:40PM Porlock Press presents Satoshi Kon’s Paprika (15) Savoy Cinema £4.85-£6.60 Subtitled. Free ticket for carers. Concessionary prices

STANWICK VENUE LUNA FLIX Outdoor Cinema, Stanwick Lakes, Stanwick, Northants, NN9 6GY Friday 21 September 7:00PM Die Hard: 30th Anniversary (15) £12.50 Saturday 29 September 9:30PM John Carpenter’s The Thing (18) £10

SCALARAMA

September 1-30, 2018

SOUTH EAST SCALARAMA SUSSEX

BRIGHTON

It’s a pretty exciting time to be a filmgoer in Sussex. So many programmers and strands have been screening films locally over the years, which inspired me to do the same; Filmspot, Open Colour, Legacy Film, Eyes Wide Open and Dreamland Cinema are just a few of many. Independent programming in Brighton has blown up somewhat, and, dare I say, become a bit of a trend, but it’s a necessary one – Brighton doesn’t have an independent cinema. We now have regular strands that represent young people (Fresh Perspectives), older people (Women Over Fifty Film Festival), local filmmakers (Octopus Films) and disability in film (The Other Screen), all championing DIY and pop-up cinema events.

BRIGHTON VENUES

Expanding our Scalarama coverage to areas outside of Brighton, we didn’t have to travel far. Seaford Community Cinema is involved again this year, putting on a 40th anniversary screening of Grease as well as live music from the Pop Up Singers to match the film’s ’50s nostalgia. We’ve included the Connaught Theatre in Worthing for the first time, known for their screenings of cult classics, and they will be showing a 35mm triple-bill of eccentric “nouveau shamanic” actor Nicolas Cage, as well as cinematic oddity The Man Who Saved the World (better known as ‘Turkish Star Wars’). Lastly, one of the newest independent cinemas on the block, Depot in Lewes have shared with us an abundance of their planned screenings, including new releases like Lucky and Skate Kitchen as well as cinematic classics such as Ben-Hur, La Belle et la Bête and Do the Right Thing. Other highlights include two films at one of the oldest cinemas on the block, the Duke of York’s. The penultimate film of our programme this year happens to be last film ever screened at the Scala before it closed its doors back in 1993 – the seminal simian special-effects extravaganza King Kong, presented in glorious 35mm! And to mark the Duke’s 108th birthday, we’ve planned a special 90th anniversary screening of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s powerful silent biopic The Passion of Joan of Arc (also in 35mm) with a live electronic score by Heliopause and This Ship Argo. We will also be celebrating the life and career of the inimitable Agnès Varda this season, with screenings of many of her films taking place at Fabrica, The Old Market and Depot throughout September – and yes, we will be referring to this as VARDARAMA! We’ve really only just scratched the surface of what the south coast has to offer communities in terms of pop-up events and cinema experiences. We’ve changed our name (yet again) from ‘Scalarama Brighton and Beyond’ to the much more apt moniker ‘Scalarama Sussex’, and next year we hope to encourage even more programmers and exhibitors, from more cities and towns in the county, to join us in a dark room with a bright screen and help us fill the land with cinemas once more. Michael McDermott @ScalaramaSussex

Cinema Saltdean, St Nicholas Hall, Saltdean Vale, Brighton, BN2 8HA – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Duke of York’s Picturehouse, Preston Road, Brighton, BN1 4NA – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Fabrica, 40 Duke Street, Brighton, BN1 1AG – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Wednesday 5 September 7:00PM Eyes Wide Open Cinema presents Nazra: Alexandria...Why? (1978) (Over 18s only) Fabrica Subtitled (in English and non-English language). Screening is British Sign Language interpreted. Free ticket for carers. Thursday 6 September 7:00PM Fabrica presents La Pointe Courte (PG) Fabrica £6/£5 Concessionary prices. Subtitled DirectedbyWomen: VARDARAMA Friday 7 September 10:00AM & 10:45AM, Friday 14 September 10:00AM & 10:45AM Brighton & Hove Open Door The Duke of York’s Cinema Tour Duke of York’s Picturehouse Free Entry but advance booking is essential Friday 7 September 6:00PM, Friday 14 September 6:00PM Brighton & Hove Open Door presents “Nice Girls Didn’t Go To The Academy!” Cinemas of Brighton Tour Duke of York’s Picturehouse FREE Monday 10 September 7:00PM Fabrica presents One Sings, The Other Doesn’t (12A) Fabrica £6/£5 Concessionary prices. Subtitled DirectedbyWomen: VARDARAMA Tuesday 18 September 7:00PM Octopus Films and Fabrica present Single Takes (15) Fabrica £3/£5 Concessionary prices Wednesday 19 September 7:00PM Fabrica and The Other Screen present Me Before You: The Piss Take (12A) Fabrica FREE–£8 Concessionary prices Thursday 20 September 7:00PM Fresh Perspectives and Fabrica present The Battle of Algiers (15) Fabrica £3/£5 Subtitled. Concessionary prices Uprising: 1968, Young Programmers Saturday 22 September 9:00PM Duke of York’s Picturehouse and Scalarama Sussex present The Passion of Joan of Arc (35mm) + Live Score from Heliopause and This Ship Argo (PG) Duke of York’s Picturehouse Preston Road Ticket price TBC Subtitled Tuesday 25 September 7:00PM Cinema Saltdean presents The Bromley Boys + Q&A with Brenock O’Connor Cinema Saltdean £5.50

Saturday 29 September 1:00PM Duke of York’s Picturehouse presents King Kong (1933) in 35mm Duke of York’s Picturehouse Ticket price TBC

HOVE

Wednesday 26 September 8:00PM La Belle et la Bête (PG) £4/£8 Subtitled Thursday 27 – Sunday 30 September Skate Kitchen (18) £4/£9 DirectedbyWomen

VENUE The Old Market,11A Upper Market Street, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 1AS – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Monday 3 September 8:00PM TOM’s Film Club presents You Were Never Really Here (15) £6 or two films for £10 DirectedbyWomen Tuesday 4 September 8:00PM TOM’s Film Club presents Jeune Femme (15) £6 or two films for £10 Subtitled DirectedbyWomen Sunday 9 September 5:00PM TOM’s Film Club presents Cléo from 5 to 7 (PG) £6 or two films for £10 Subtitled DirectedbyWomen: VARDARAMA Sunday 9 September 7:00PM TOM’s Film Club presents The Gleaners and I (U) £6 or two films for £10 Subtitled DirectedbyWomen: VARDARAMA

LEWES VENUE Depot, Pinwell Road, Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 2JS – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Venue offers free ticket for carers and concessionary prices.

Saturday 1 – Thursday 6 September Do the Right Thing (15) £4/£8 Friday 7 – Thursday 13 September BlacKkKlansman (18) £4/£9 Friday 7 – Thursday 13 September American Animals (15) £4/£9 Tuesday 11 September 8:30PM Agnès Varda’s The Gleaners and I (U) £4/£8 Subtitled DirectedbyWomen: VARDARAMA Wednesday 12 September 8:00PM Agnès Varda’s Le Bonheur (15) £4/£8 Subtitled DirectedbyWomen: VARDARAMA Friday 14 – Thursday 20 September Lucky (15) £4/£9 Tuesday 18 September 8:30PM Agnès Varda’s Vagabond (15) £4/£8 Subtitled DirectedbyWomen: VARDARAMA Wednesday 19 September 8:30PM Agnès Varda’s The Beaches of Agnès (18) £4/£8 Subtitled DirectedbyWomen: VARDARAMA Friday 21 – Thursday 27 September Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. (15) £4/£9

Sunday 30 September 2:00PM Ben-Hur (PG) £4/£9

SEAFORD Friday 21 September 7:30PM Seaford Community Cinema presents Grease (40th Anniversary!) (PG) Seaford Community Cinema, Barn Theatre, Saxon Lane, Seaford, East Sussex, BN25 1QL £6 or £5 for members Venue is wheelchair accessible

SHOREHAM BY SEA Thursday 27 September 7:00PM Jackie Blackwell presents West Sussex Coast Asteroid Riverbank, Shoreham by Sea, BN43 5YH FREE Screening is demmentia friendly

WORTHING VENUE Connaught Cinema, Worthing Union Place, Worthing, West Sussex, BN11 11LG – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Saturday 8 September 3:00PM Nic Cage Triple Bill: Con Air, The Rock & Face/Off (18) £6/£7 for one film, £15 for all three films 35mm Friday 14 September 8:15PM Planet of the Apes (PG) £6/£7 Monday 24 September 8:15PM ‘Turkish Star Wars’ (12A) FREE Friday 28 September 8:15PM Rosemary’s Baby (18) £6/£7

CANTERBURY Saturday 29 September 6:00PM (time tbc) Gulbenkian ART31 presents Generation Revolution Gulbenkian, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NB – Venue is wheelchair accessible Uprising: 1968, Young Programmers

ST IVES VENUE Corn Exchange, St Ives, Cambs The Pavement, The Old Riverport, St Ives, Cambridgeshire, PE27 5AD – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Thursday 6 September 8:00PM Screen St Ives presents The Salesman (12A) £5 Subtitled Friday 21 September 8:00PM Screen St Ives presents The Wages of Fear (12A) £5 Subtitled

September 1-30, 2018

LONDON This year Scalarama is returning to London to find the film scene thriving with independent programmers, film clubs and cinemas breathing life into the city far from the multiplex. In September, this diverse community that has grown and shifted over the past year will come together to celebrate everything that made the Scala cinema so legendary. Some special mentions on the scene… Cinemas! The longstanding Rio Cinema has installed a second screen, making space for experimental programming in the basement of its iconic auditorium, while the Cinema Museum, on the brink of being “developed” out of existence, has fought back and recently won Time Out London’s ‘Most loved local culture spot’ award. The campaign continues, however, so stay in touch with its programme and news to keep a London institution alive! Meanwhile, the Bernie Grant Arts Centre, the Castle, Deptford Cinema and DIY Space for London continue to carry the torch for volunteer-run and crowdfunded community cinemas. Film clubs! The London film-club scene has become fundamental to the city’s cultural life: from the immersive cinephilia of Deeper Into Movies, to the cult feminist horror of the Final Girls, and the incredible uniting of film and food for a great cause by the Welcome Cinema + Kitchen, cooked up by refugee women every month. Festivals! The London Porn Film Festival entered its second year of success, programming DIY queer feminist porn for the people, whilst Fringe! Queer Film Festival has blessed us with monthly Fringe! Flings events at the Genesis Cinema. Scalarama London 2018! Our programme is led by the Great Big Scala Book Launch, featuring the original Scala staff, audiences and friends celebrating at the former Scala cinema site in King’s Cross. Outside of this we are filling every corner of London with all that made the Scala what it was, with an allnight quadruple-bill of Scala classics in Portobello, a celebration of Kenneth Anger in Hackney and The Warriors coming out to play in Tufnell Park. Helen MacKenzie & Will Swinburne LONDON VENUES Bertha DocHouse, Curzon Bloomsbury, The Brunswick Centre, London, WC1N £9 The Book Club, 100-106 Leonard Street, London, EC2A 4RH Cafe 1001, 91 Brick Lane, London, E1 6QL Ciné Lumière, 7 Queensberry Place, Kensington, London, SW7 2DT – Venue is wheelchair accessible. The Cinema Museum, 2 Dugard Way, London, SE11 4TH – Venue is wheelchair accessible. The David Lean Cinema, Croydon Clocktower, Katharine Street, Croydon, CR9 1ET Deptford Cinema, 39 Deptford Broadway, London, SE8 4PQ Genesis Cinema, 93-95 Mile End Road, London, E1 4UJ Goethe-Institut London, 50 Princes Gate, Exhibition Road, London, SW7 2PH Harris Academy, 2 Cumberlow Avenue, South Norwood, Croydon, SE25 6AE

SCALARAMA

The Horse Hospital Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London, WC1N 1JD – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Lexi Cinema 94B Chamberlayne Rd, Kensal Green, London, NW10 3JU – Venue is wheelchair accessible. The Lord Palmerston, 33 Dartmouth Park Hill, London, NW5 1HU Moth Club, Old Trades Hall, Valette Street, London, E9 6NU – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Regent Street Cinema, 309 Regent St, London, W1B 2UW Rio Cinema, 107 Kingsland High Street, London, E8 2PB – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Scala, 275 Pentonville Rd, Kings Cross, London N1 9NL Sunday 2 September 2:00PM Stolen Summers film season: The Green Ray + Unrelated (15) The Lexi Cinema £8/£14 Subtitled DirectedbyWomen, Young Programmers Sunday 2 September 7:00PM Deeper Into Movies presents Kenneth Anger Films Live Scored With Special Guests Tomaga (Over 18s only) Moth Club £20 Tuesday 4 – Sunday 9 September Open City Documentary Festival Various venues including ICA, BFI Southbank, Prince Charles Cinema and Regent Street Cinema Tuesday 4 September 8:00PM Tufnell Park Film Club presents Daisies (1966) (15) The Lord Palmerston Free for members. Annual membership £15 Subtitled DirectedbyWomen Wednesday 5 September 7:30PM IndieFlicks Monthly International Short Film Festival (Over 18s only) Cafe 1001 £6 Saturday 8 & Sunday 9 September Kennington Bioscope presents Silent Film Weekender (U) The Cinema Museum £18 per day 16mm & 35mm Sunday 9 September 4:00PM Stolen Summers film season presents La Piscine + A Summer Dress (short) (12A) Ciné Lumière £5-£12 Subtitled. Concessionary prices Young Programmers Monday 10 September 6:30PM Jane Giles presents Female Trouble & Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Regent Street Cinema £12 one film, £16 two films Concessionary prices Scala Tribute Wednesday 12 September 7:00PM Crap Film Club presents Hard Ticket to Hawaii (18) The Book Club £5 Wednesday 12 September 7:00PM Relating Narratives presents Vivian’s Garden (2017) + Q&A with Rosalind Nashashibi The Horse Hospital £5 Free ticket for carers. Screening is suitable for parents/carers with babies DirectedbyWomen

Wednesday 12 September 7:30PM Screen25 presents The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (12A) Harris Academy £5/£8.50 Uprising: 1968

Wednesday 26 September 7:00PM FAB Press and Jane Giles present Scala Book Launch Party Scala £10 Scala Tribute

Thursday 13 – Tuesday 25 September Goethe-Institut London presents Always Somewhere Else: The Cinema of Angela Schanelec in Dialogue Goethe-Institut London £3 Subtitled DirectedbyWomen 35mm

Friday 28 – Sunday 30 September TheBeeKeepers presents East London All-Night film festival (Elan) Genesis Cinema £££££

Saturday 15 September 7:00PM Forever Young Film Club presents Pretty in Pink (15) Deptford Cinema £6/£4.50 Sunday 16 September 2:30PM Kennington Classics presents The Servant (1963) (12A) The Cinema Museum £6 Sunday 16 September 3:00PM Stolen Summers film season: Fat Girl + panel discussion (18) Genesis Cinema £5 Subtitled DirectedbyWomen, Young Programmers Sunday 16 September 4:00PM Bertha DocHouse presents Harlan County USA (No cert) Bertha DocHouse £9/£7 Scala Tribute, DirectedbyWomen Sunday 16 September 6:00PM The Cinema Museum presents Horror House aka Haunted House of Horror (1969) The Cinema Museum £6/£15 Sunday 16 September 6:30PM Deptford Cinema and BFI Young Programmers present Love is the Devil (1998) Deptford Cinema £6.50 Concessionary prices Young Programmers Tuesday 18 September 8:00PM Tufnell Park Film Club presents The Warriors (15) The Lord Palmerston Free for members. Annual membership £15 Wednesday 19 September 7:30PM London Short Film Festival presents Five Days of Darkness Regent Street Cinema £10/£12 Wednesday 19 September 7:30PM Kennington Noir presents The Dark Mirror (1946) on 16mm (PG) The Cinema Museum £6 16mm Saturday 22 September 8:00PM Rio Cinema presents Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (The Man Who Saves the World) aka ‘Turkish Star Wars’ Rio Cinema FREE Tuesday 25 September 7:30PM David Lean Cinema presents Vagabond David Lean Cinema £8.50/£7 DirectedbyWomen: VARDARAMA Wednesday 26 September 7:00PM Goethe-Kino presents Paris, Texas Goethe-Institut London £3/Admission Free for Goethe-Institut language students and library members. Subtitled

Saturday 29 September 3:30PM Relating Narratives presents It Takes A Million Years to be a Woman (2011) + Three Lives (1971) The Horse Hospital £5 Screening is autism and dementia friendly. Free ticket for carers. Screening is suitable for parents/carers with babies. Concessionary prices DirectedbyWomen Saturday 29 September 6:30PM Relating Narratives presents Scuola Senza Fine (1983) + Privilege (1990) The Horse Hospital £5 Screening is autism and dementia friendly. Free ticket for carers. Screening is suitable for parents/carers with babies. Concessionary prices DirectedbyWomen Sunday 30 September 3:00PM The Celluloid Sorceress presents Tigerland + Phone Booth: 35mm Double Feature (18) The Cinema Museum £9/£6.50 (conc) for each film, or £12.50/£9.50 (conc) for both 35mm

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SOUTH WEST

WALES

NORTHERN IRELAND

BATH

RHYL

BELFAST

Monday 10 September 7:30PM Bristol Bad Film Club presents Samurai Cop (18) Komedia, 22-23 Westgate St, Bath, BA1 1EP £8

Saturday 15 September TIME TBC Rhyl Wicked Cinema presents Night of the Living Dead (12A) Rhyl Little Theatre, 17 Vale Rd, Rhyl LL18 2BS PRICE TBC Uprising: 1968, Young Programmers

Friday 28 September 8:00PM Banterflix presents The Dark Hedges Movie Club: The Haunting (1963) (12A) The Beanbag Cinema, 5 Exchange Place, Belfast, Antrim, BT1 2NA £6

BOURNEMOUTH Friday 21 – Saturday 22 September Dirt In The Gate Movies presents 35mm Grindfest: Erasherhead, Popcorn, The Monster Squad, Demons, The Ghastly Love of Johnny X, Big Trouble in Little China (18) Shelley Theatre, Beechwood Avenue, Bournemouth, Dorset, BH5 1LX 2 Day Pass £35 Saturday Pass £30. Individual films £9.50. Venue is wheelchair accessible. Free ticket for carers. 35mm

BRISTOL Saturday 1 September 12:00PM South West Silents presents SWS Film Silent Open Day (PG) 20th Century Flicks, 19 Christmas Steps, Bristol, BS1 5BS FREE Friday 7 September 6:00PM South West Silents presents Friese-Greene Film and Beer Launch (PG) The Victoria Pub 2 Southleigh Road, Bristol, BS8 2BH FREE Venue is wheelchair accessible Friday 28 September 8:00PM Hellfire Video Club and Bristol Bad Film Club present Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (The Man Who Saves the World), aka ‘Turkish Star Wars’ Cube Cinema, Dove Street South, Bristol, BS2 8JD FREE Subtitled

PORTSMOUTH VENUE No6 Cinema, Boathouse 6, Historic Dockyard, College Rd, Portsmouth, PO1 3LJ – Venue is wheelchair accessible. Free ticket for carers. Friday 28 September 7:00PM South West Silents presents Battleship Potemkin (1925) (PG) £5/£10 Screening is Subtitled (in English) Saturday 29 September 4:15PM South West Silents presents Zeebrugge (1924) (PG) £5/£10 Saturday 29 September 7:00PM South West Silents presents Nelson (1918) (PG) £5/£10

TORRINGTON Sunday 23 September 7:00PM The Plough Arts Centre presents One Note at a Time (PG) The Plough Arts Centre, 9-11 Fore Street, Torrington, Dorset, EX38 8HQ £5.50, £6.50 Venue is wheelchair accessible. Free ticket for carers DirectedbyWomen

September 1-30, 2018

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Presented at the Serpentine Gallery’s Manifesto Marathon in 2008. With thanks to Lucia Pietroiusti and Sally Tallant. Watch it at youtu.be/VYNxzgViSs8

AGNÈS VARDA’S MANIFESTO What to do? How to do it? A Potato Story

What about the current century? We go ahead progressing, discovering, inventing, And also we go backwards, losing some quality of life, destroying the planet. [In the background, a voice coming out of a potato costume on a walking woman, recites a list of French potato varieties, including Bailla, Bea, Belle de Fontenay, BF. 15, Bintje, Bleue d’Auvergne, Blondy, Bondeville, Bonnotte de Noirmoutier, Duchesse, Early Rose, Eden, Elkana, Elodie, Emeraude, Epauna, Estima, Europa, Fausta, Felsina, Florette, Floriane, Florice, Franceline, Frégate, Gourmandine, Gredine, Hermine, Institut de Beauvais, Iroise, Isabel.] Varieties of potatoes - all those different kinds remind us that people also are different. We don’t know enough about all the varieties of people. We don’t learn enough about them. I chose the POTATO – modest vegetable – as the perfect object to look at and have some thoughts. We are in the middle of a huge economic crisis, a storm of virtual money floating over stock markets, internet transactions, transfers flying from a bank to another… all that is immaterial economy. It can be opposed to material economy, people’s problems: unemployment, subprime loan dramas, loss of purchasing power, poverty, injustice, and also discrimination and segregation. Regarding potatoes, it means sorting according to format, sizes and calibres. The market makes the law Our society overproduces and overconsumes . The waste is enormous [On the screen we see youngsters-rappers: ‘When I think of all the thrown out food and waste. It’s crazy. It makes me mad. If you have been kicked out by a woman, Out of your work, down and sad, you need to know where to find food.’] In towns and cities, some people have to bend down and salvage what other people throw away. They need our leftovers to eat.

Back to the potatoes. Recession might force us to reduce our eating pattern Let’s eat differently . Let’s eat less And with less choice of food. [On the screen we see kids moving in the country and singing: Monday, potatoes! Tuesday, potatoes! Wednesday, potatoes also! Thursday, potatoes! Friday,potatoes! Saturday, potatoes also Sunday… Gratin of potatoes!] Now… about the future, so much needs to be changed. Here are three problems that should be solved: plagues such as Racism, Machismo and Destruction of nature. [We see excerpts of films about these three subjects... images of a Jew arrested by Gestapo men.] As for the collective struggle of women: they also fight for the right to decide if they want to bear each child or not. [Women’s demonstration: ‘I tried to be a joyful feminist but I was angry. Rape, domestic violence, clitoral excisions, abortions in appalling conditions... Young girls going to hospital for scraping and young doctors saying ‘No anaesthetic… that’ll teach you!’] This is in France, but in so many countries women have no rights at all. [Images of spoiled beaches and birds] Look at the disaster when one sole ship full of oil goes under. It can pollute beaches and kill oil-stricken birds. An ecological suggestion: ride a bicycle in the country and in town. Or drive a handmade car, running with leg energy. Is it sometimes progress to go backwards? Back to the basic needs, plus space for desire, clean land and ocean, light wind in the sky, and … love

Agnès Varda

NOW IN CINEMAS AND ON DEMAND