Fearless film programmer and Matchbox hero Kier-La Janisse joined us last week via Zoom to discuss her inspirational career in cinema. In a two-hour conversation, Kier-La very generously held forth on everything from her zine editing to basement horror screenings; to founding the CineMuerte film festival; to programming the Alamo Drafthouse; to running her own micro cinema; to publishing her landmark memoir House of Psychotic Women; to launching her own publishing house, Spectacular Optical.
Kier-La shared the secrets of her Cannibal Holocausticles, her Montreal microcinema Blue Sunshine (more on that and the scene around it in Donna de Ville’s dissertation, The Microcinema Movement and Montreal), and her hilariously ill-fated stint as a scout for Drafthouse Films. We also heard some of the highlights of her career in genre film programming, including screening Until the Light Takes Us onto a screen made of snow in the dead of the Canadian winter, hosting Deep End in a swimming pool surrounded with electrical equipment and recruiting Udo Kier to help live dub an unsubtitled print of Black Bell of the Tarantula.
We also had a chance to quiz the veteran programmer on the ethics of film programming, the evolution of horror fandom, her advice for aspiring programmers and some of her favourite films – including some of her most memorable screenings, her wishlist and the ones that got away.
You can watch the whole conversation on our Vimeo page here, or YouTube here, or you can read the transcript here.
Scalarama Glasgow’s monthly roundtables continue online (for now). Follow Scalarama Glasgow on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay up-to-date.
The next monthly roundtable takes place on Sunday 24th May, on Zoom. Details via the Facebook page, here.
Scalarama in Scotland is supported by Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, and funded by Screen Scotland and Lottery funding from the BFI.
spectacularoptical.ca
miskatonicinstitute.com
severin-films.com
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