Description
Scala!!! Or, the Incredibly Strange Rise and Fall of the World’s Wildest Cinema and How It Influenced a Mixed-up Generation of Weirdos and Misfits (18)
Director: Ali Catterall, Jane Giles
Starring: John Waters, Caroline Catz, Ben Wheatley, Stewart Lee
Documentary | UK | 2023
1 h 36 mins
Scala!!! is a heady trip through 15 years (1978-1993) of the Scala cinema near King’s Cross Station in London – a time where the venue was a hub for the wilder side of cinema as it screened high art classics alongside schlocky exploitation films and would prove trailblazing for LGBQT cinema in particular. Renowned film-makers such as John Waters, Ben Wheatley and (friend of the PFF) Stephen Woolley recount the heavy influence the Scala had on their art and the film also uses copious archival footage to provide a riotous, kaleidoscopic account of both the cinema and of Britain’s counter-culture in the 70s and 80s.
SPECIAL GUEST Q&A WITH THE CO-DIRECTORS
Jane Giles is a writer whose film books include Criminal Desires (Creation Press, 2002), The Crying Game (BFI Modern Classics, 1997), The Cinema of Jean Genet (BFI, 1991) and the award-winning Scala Cinema 1978-1993 (FAB Press, 2018) which inspired this documentary. She was programmer at the Scala from 1988-1992.
Ali Catterall is an award-winning writer and journalist who cut his moviegoing teeth during the 1980s at the Scala, which he credits for turning him into a film critic. In 2001, he co-authored Your Face Here: British Cult Movies Since the Sixties, and edited Scala Cinema 1978-1993. He is currently working on a memoir about his bizarre childhood.
SCALA!!! is the film debut of both co-directors.
Friday 3 Nov. 5.45 pm | FILM PREVIEW
The Rex Cinema, 14 West Street, Wareham, BH20 4JY
£12: £6.50 (Students and under 25s)
