Matchbox Cine is an independent exhibitor of outcasts, orphans and outliers and an award-winning subtitler, specialising in access provision in film exhibition and distribution. We programme, curate and promote cult film events – including KeanuCon, Cage-a-rama (Scotland’s first Nicolas Cage film festival), Weird Weekend (a festival devoted to strange and unseen cinema), Kaleidoscopic Realms, Remakesploitation Fest and The World’s Greatest 3D Film Club-and exclusive screenings (including Joe Dante’s The Movie Orgy, Oxide Ghosts: The Brass Eye Tapes and Double Take In Outer Space).

In 2017, we commissioned our first live score, Ela Orleans’ reinterpretation of Guy Maddin’s Cowards Bend The Knee, which has subsequently played in Brussels, Hawick, Hueca and New York.

In 2022, we restored and premiered Fredric Hobbs’ “lost” film Troika (1969), commissioned the first English subtitles for Welsh language horrors Gwaed Ar Y Sêr (1975) and O’r Ddaear Hen (1981), premiered a brand-new restoration of Claude d’Anna’s Trompe l’oeil (1975), with our newly translated English subtitles, and toured Kier-La Janisse around the UK to celebrate the 10th anniversary expanded edition of her book, House of Psychotic Women.

Matchbox Cinesub, our professional subtitling arm, has provided descriptive subtitles (aka SDH/HoH/captions) for over 1,000 films and short films. In 2020, Matchbox won a National Lottery Award in the Art/Culture/Film category, for efforts making films accessible for Deaf audiences. Films in distribution we’ve made subtitles for include Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Radu Jude, 2021), A Banquet (Ruth Paxton, 2021), Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria (2021) and all 14 hours of Mark Cousins’ Women Make Film (2018).

We’ve toured film programmes (including Turkish Star Wars 2K and John Paizs’ Crime Wave) across the world and hosted events in the Glasgow Film Theatre, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Kinning Park Complex, Nice N Sleazy, The Old Hairdressers, The Banshee Labyrinth, Sofi’s Bar & Doune The Rabbit Hole and New York’s Spectacle Theater. From January 2015 to October 2017, we hosted a residency on the third Thursday of every month, first at the Old Hairdressers then at CCA, Glasgow.

Collaboration is very important to us. We’ve created events with Abertoir, Africa In Motion Film Festival, Alliance Française, Backseat Bingo, Celluloid Screams, Diet Soda Cineclub, Document Film Festival, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Final Girls Berlin Film Festival, Glasgow Film Festival, Glasgow Short Film Festival, Glasgow International Comedy Festival, Grimmfest, Mayhem Film Festival, Physical Impossibility, Pilot Light TV Festival, Pity Party Film Club, Rooftop Film Club, Queer Classics, Remakesploitation, She’s En Scene Women’s Community Cinema, Scalarama, Spectacle Theater and Venom Mob Film Club.

Sean Welsh | Programmer & Subtitler sean@matchboxcine.com

Megan Mitchell | Producer megan@matchboxcine.com

Calvin Halliday | Subtitler calvin@matchboxcine.com

Charlotte Little | Access Consultant charlotte@matchboxcine.com

To request a rate card, quote or to make a general enquiry regarding access materials, please e-mail: sean@matchboxcine.com.

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