SubtitledCinema – Matchbox Cine

Case Study: Petrov’s Flu & Accessible Foreign Language Cinema

With support from BFI, Matchbox worked with Sovereign Films to make their recent release of Petrov’s Flu accessible to Deaf and Blind audiences

The number of “foreign-language” films released in the UK has risen more or less year-on-year in the last 20, from 96 in 2001 to 346 in 2019. Parasite‘s historic 2020 Oscar win (with Bong Joon-Ho’s widely reported exhortation to overcome the “one inch tall barrier of subtitles”), seemed to signal a seachange in general audiences’ acceptance of subtitled cinema. Netflix and social media have helped to standardise the sight of subtitles with mainstream audiences while, internationally, the idea of employing same-language subtitles to improve literacy has gained traction.

At the same time, non-English language films still represent a small fraction of the UK box office, and exhibitors coming out of a pandemic have to navigate an increasingly homogenised slate of US franchise blockbusters, dwindling resources and narrow margins for error. To succeed, non-English language films also have to engage with some deeply engrained assumptions and prejudices (on both sides of the box office desk) around subtitled screenings.

Sovereign’s theatrical poster for Petrov’s Flu

A subtitled screening, meanwhile, is not necessarily an accessible one. Just because a French film has subtitles, doesn’t mean audiences who generally rely upon descriptive subtitles (AKA captions, SDH or HoH) to enjoy cinema on equal terms will have anything like the same experience as a general audience.

I used to settle for watching films with English subtitles, and in the case of foreign language films, I would sit through the entire screening hoping that there wasn’t any English dialogue, and if there was, that I wouldn’t miss an essential plot point. It wasn’t until I started watching films with descriptive subtitles and attending captioned screenings that I realised how much I was missing out on, how much more information I was getting from descriptive labels, the presence of which drastically enhance my viewing experience and enjoyment. I was especially frustrated with the release of A Quiet Place, a groundbreaking film that spotlights deafness and sign language, as almost all of it was in English subtitles due to the characters’ use of sign language, so it was accessible for people who don’t know ASL. But it wasn’t accessible for Deaf audiences as there wasn’t any descriptive labels and there wasn’t English subtitles for the very few lines of English dialogue. The provision of descriptive subtitles makes my viewing experience an equal one, an experience that I don’t have to compromise on.
Charlotte Little, Access Consultant (Matchbox Cine)

Nevertheless, Deaf audiences are regularly excluded from non-English language cinema, whether that’s at physical screenings (where English language films are often, however understandably, given precedence in already niche slots), on VOD (where technical restrictions can mitigate full access measures, if not block them entirely) or on disc (often the last refuge for access). While dedicated programming strands and regular screening slots can ensure Deaf- or disability-focussed programming is accessible to audiences, the wide world of cinema is often frustratingly withheld.

The reasons are often complex, but the barriers to access usually can be delineated according to 1) budgetary restrictions 2) extremely tight schedules 3) a fundamental gap in knowledge and 4) perceived or real technical restrictions. We’ve found that Matchbox can be of use with all four of these elements, leaving the basic will to make improvements the final variable. Happily, most distributors and exhibitors do have that will, even if, due to some combination of the other variables, they’ve not been able to deliver accessible screenings.

Kirill Serebrennikov’s Russian-language Petrov’s Flu is the second project in an ongoing collaboration we’ve developed with one such, UK-based distributor, Sovereign Films. Beginning with Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Radu Jude, 2021), continuing through Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2021) and, most recently, Theo and the Metamorphosis (Damien Odoul, 2022), we’ve created descriptive subtitles and sometimes audio description for their releases – access materials that can then be used in various contexts – theatrical, VOD and/or disc. Sovereign’s releases are mostly non-English language (or have multiple audio languages, as is the case with Memoria). Our work with Sovereign, particularly on Petrov’s Flu (the release of which was supported by BFI’s Audience Fund, awarding funds from the National Lottery) is good model for how independent distributors can work with access providers to develop access materials.

A QUICK ASIDE ON TERMINOLOGY – we advocate for the term “descriptive subtitles” when discussing access materials made for films. There are essentially two categories of subtitles, and only one universally useful distinction. On one hand, you have “subtitles”, which contain only dialogue (whether it’s translated into English from another language, or simply transcribes English dialogue). On the other, you have “descriptive subtitles” which also contain descriptive elements such as sound effects [Petrov coughs], speech identifiers [Petrova] and music labels [Breezy accordion music]. Descriptive subtitles are also variously known as captions (open or closed), Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (SDH), Hard of Hearing (HoH). Part of the problem with “captions” is that it is often used interchangeably with subtitles, leading to confusion at every possible stage – in planning and discussing accessibility, managing film materials, advertising screenings, etc. We prefer “descriptive subtitles” because it’s clear, removes ambiguity and simply denotes what the file is, rather than who it’s supposedly for (bearing in mind the majority of viewers using subtitles are not Deaf, nor hard-of-hearing; they are also widely valued by viewers for whom English is not their first language and neurodivergent audience members). NB there are further subtleties, particularly regarding file formats and when discussing various different contexts, but the least confusing and most fundamental dichotomy is subtitles vs descriptive subtitles.

Screengrab of two subtitle files opened in TextEdit. Timecodes and dialogue are present on the left-hand file; Timecodes, dialogue and descriptive elements are present in the right-hand file. — *Petrov’s Flu* Subtitles (left) vs Descriptive Subtitles (right)

To illustrate the difference between subtitles and descriptive subtitles and to explain the inadequacies of a basic English subtitle file for access purposes, non-English language films are very useful. For example, the basic subtitle file for Petrov’s Flu (above, left), which translates all of the Russian dialogue (and all the Cyrillic text on-screen) into English, contains 1,841 subtitles. The descriptive subtitle file (above, right), which adds all the elements in order to make the film accessible, contains 2,285 subtitles, an increase of 19.4%. The intention is to give as equal an experience as possible, and those additional 444 subtitles are essential in that regard. To understand the potential shortfall, we only have to imagine a film with the last reel missing, or with 1/5 of the screen obscured throughout.

Sovereign engaged Matchbox to produce access materials (both descriptive subtitles and audio description) for the release of Petrov’s Flu. As is relatively typical, there was a short amount of time to produce those materials, so that they could be packaged with the theatrical DCP. Often, local distributors are given either pre-packaged DCPs, ready for screening, or versions of the film with their local language subtitles already burned-in. Distributors are faced with the choice to re-package the DCPs (provided to them by sales agents) at often significant cost (labs often charge excessively for each additional subtitle file), on top of the production of the access materials themselves. Access materials, which, it should be said, are not often packaged with the films when they are sold (which does make some amount of sense for international titles – a French film, for example, will sometimes be delivered with French descriptive subtitles but not English). Meanwhile, distributors’ delivery schedules are often extremely narrow – they may take delivery of a film just weeks before their DCP must be finalised for release, or even for a planned festival screening, meaning the access materials need created and approved in a very narrow window (and, with already narrow margins, it can be hard to justify the expense of creating a new DCP for a theatrical release if you’ve created one weeks or months earlier for a festival screening, but sans access materials because there wasn’t time yet to complete them).

Photograph from set of Petrov's Flu, with a sepia tint. Three men sit in back of van, one (bald) pours a drink. The cosy van is festooned with rugs, flowers and other decorative elements — *Filming* Petrov’s Flu *in St. Petersburg, Russia, Tuesday December 10, 2019. (Photo: Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times)*

Luckily, we had recourse to a “clean” version of Petrov’s Flu, with no burned-in subtitles. Sovereign also could give us access to various deliverables from the production, including a music cue sheet, which helped us to make full and accurate access materials. We then created a suite of files for use in various contexts – a full descriptive subtitles file, for use with the theatrical DCP (and any subsequent disc release) and a DS-only file, designed to work around the basic English subtitle file. The DS-only file removes some of the additional elements that clash with the basic file – for example speech identifiers, or sound effects that would otherwise be merged with the dialogue-only subtitles. (NB It’s possible to create a file that simply raises those clashing subtitles to the top of the screen – useful when making an accessible DCP from a video with burned-in subtitles – but most online contexts can’t support the requisite HTML code in the sidecar file, rendering them ineffective at best, at worst leaving the code visible to the viewer).

This latter is a necessarily compromised file, of diminished effectiveness, but it’s a necessary evil (for the moment), since many online platforms either can’t support multiple subtitle files (meaning the basic English file takes the only slot) or don’t support “sidecar” (read: separate, optional) subtitle files at all. This latter is the case for some VOD platforms which viewers commonly cast to their televisions – if subtitles are required, they must therefore be burned-in/hardcoded (a permanent part of the film’s image) and, again, the basic English file usually takes precedence.

In terms of audio description, it’s relatively uncommon for non-English languages films in theatrical distribution. Since AD scripts need to incorporate any on-screen text, including subtitles (which must be voiced along with the descriptions of visual information), AD is more likely to be produced against dubbed version of films. It means a film like Petrov’s Flu, as long and verbose as it is, presents a particular challenge. Dubbing an entire feature is still prohibitively expensive for an indepedent exhibitor, releasing into one market (a little more economical for Disney+ or Netflix, who coincidentally report that international audiences increasingly prefer dubbed films to subtitled ones). Truthfully, creating AD for Petrov’s Flu was a mammoth task for our scripter and our voicer, who are generally adept and well practiced at creating and delivering concise and effective descriptions. We can be confident, though, that we didn’t cut corners to deliver the file.

I’d love to see SDH subtitles become the norm on foreign films. It’s just good practice and I hope more distributors do this.
Will Mager (writer, director, producer)

We’ve been able to help Sovereign navigate all these potential complications to ensure their releases are as accessible as possible and to produce theatrical quality materials with very tight turnarounds. The key word their for us, for Sovereign and for audiences is “quality”. We’re determined that our subtitles help to create an equal experience for everyone potentially in attendance – bearing in mind that the Deaf audience itself isn’t monolithic, but encompasses people deaf from birth, those that have become deaf, hard-of-hearing people, those whose first or preferred language is BSL, etc – including a fully-hearing audience. Cinema is essentially immersive and communal and, rather than compartmentalise audiences, the hope is to bring them together.

That’s not possible with sub-par subtitles, or with unproved and unreliable technology that makes Deaf and/or disabled audiences the problem. As advocates as well as practioners, we’re focussed on making sure the materials we produce are the best quality and that they meet the expectations of the audience, rather than the bare minimum to qualify as access materials – e.g. lyrics are transcribed wherever necessary and possible and untranslated, non-English dialogue is transcribed wherever possible (if a film-maker has chosen not to translate non-English dialogue, instead of simply labelling [He speaks Spanish], if we’re able to, we’ll transcribe it, “Los subtítulos son geniales.”). As all good subtitlers do, we go the extra mile in our research to confirm spellings and phraseology, to identify needle drops and source official lyrics.

As with all our work, regardless of the context, the materials we make for Sovereign are made to the best professional quality, so audiences can be confident that their titles meet those standards while exhibitors can rely upon the materials to be present (and to present correctly). With the materials available – and crucially prepared for every context – audiences can begin to expect upon the provision being there without them asking for it.

Matchbox & Sovereign’s panel discussion on Petrov’s Flu and accessibility for non-English language films

Cinemas and other exhibitors can also make useful changes (while avoiding unfortunate mis-steps). Ensure your accessible screenings are listed and advertised prominently and correctly. Don’t lump simply subtitled screenings together with accessible screenings on your website’s “accessible” screenings page, or in your reporting – that means when you boast about the percentage of accessible screenings in your programme, it’ll be entirely accurate. Be confident and informed when engaging with your general audiences – challenge assumptions, including your own. Your general audiences may generally swerve “open-captioned” screenings, but that’s because they have the choice, and perhaps because they’ve had bad experiences of subtitled ones – they may even, as has been evidenced, wrongly believe open-captioned films screen with no sound. Educate staff, both customer-facing and behind the scenes of the value and requirements of accessibility, as well as the correct terminology, in order to avoid unnecessary barriers to access (such as when access materials are not requested from distributors, or if they are, they’re advertised incorrectly).

The truth is people will watch a film with subtitles in, even if they don’t realise it straight away. After all, the highest grossing movie of all time is Avatar, a film where over a third of its dialogue is in Na’Vi… which is subtitled.
Film Stories

There is a massive potential audience for accessible screenings of all stripes, but the main obstacles to developing it are consistency in quality and general availability. Audiences’ trust needs to be earned before they will reliably turn out for accessible screenings – and not just the (if they’re lucky) one a day, scheduled during work hours. Meanwhile, mainstream audiences are arguably largely untested in their tolerance for more accessible screenings. As practioners and advocates, all we can do is help to break down those barriers to access – all that remains is the will to finally sweep them away.

Sean Welsh

Petrov’s Flu will be released to VOD on Monday 27th June.

For more information, check sovereignfilms.co.uk, or follow Sovereign Films on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.

Long Interview: Sean Welsh and Megan Mitchell (BBC Radio Scotland, 17/01/21)

Broadcaster Pauline McLean interviewed Matchbox about our National Lottery Award win, accessible film screenings and cinema under COVID

Towards the end of 2020, we were invited to speak to broadcaster (and Cage-a-rama attendee) Pauline McLean about our recent National Lottery Award, in the Culture & Arts category, for our work producing descriptive subtitles (AKA captions, SDH, HoH) for films during the COVID lockdown, ongoing work which is supported with National Lottery Funds via Film Hub Scotland.

You can listen and download the interview from BBC here. BBC doesn’t currently provide transcripts of its radio shows, so we’ve made one ourselves. Read it below, download a PDF here, or listen along with our subtitled clip.

Presenter: You’re listening to the Good Morning Scotland Weekend Edition podcast. Now, lots of people have found tasks to be done during lockdown, but spare a thought for film enthusiasts Sean Welsh and Megan Mitchell, who spent their lockdown subtitling hundreds of films for Deaf and Hard of Hearing audiences. Well, Sean and Megan normally run Matchbox Cineworld, providing cult films for festivals. Cage-a-rama, their celebration of Nicolas Cage, should have taken place this month but they’re confident it will return and perhaps bring the eccentric actor himself to Glasgow. Well, our Arts Correspondent Pauline McLean spoke to them at the tail end of 2020.

John Waters: Hello, I’m John Waters, and I’m supposed to announce there’s no smoking in this theatre.

Megan Mitchell: Myself and my colleague Sean Welsh are Matchbox Cineclub. We’re currently based in Bristol, having just recently moved but we originally were active predominantly in Glasgow and Scotland. And we’re independent film exhibitors. And all that means is that we screen films, we run film festivals, we work with cinemas to put on film events. Our ethos, in terms of programming and what films we like to screen, we call them the outcasts, orphans and outliers of cinema,

Nicolas Cage: He jumped over three line-backers in mid-air. He sprouted antlers, like a gazelle. [He laughs] Like an elk?! [He laughs] He landed again and he ran, ran, ran. He scored a touchdown! [He laughs]

Megan Mitchell: We like to screen films – cult films for cold audiences – but also we place a keen emphasis on accessibility. So, we use a pay-what-you-can-afford sliding scale ticket model, from zero to £8, and we also present all the films with captions, for and Deaf and Hard of Hearing audiences.

Pauline McLean: So, this is where the Lottery Award comes in, because a lot of people during lockdown, I guess, kicked back and thought, “Well, there’s not much for me to do.” The two of you actually decided that there was even more to do, in terms of subtitling films and you did, how many? About 250 in that time?

Sean Welsh: The number’s a little elastic. It’s actually still in a sense, it’s still going. It was 150 at the kind of midpoint. And it’s 300 now, I think. So, it’s, day-by-day it increases, because it’s still ongoing, of course. Over the summer, it was certainly about 200.

Pauline McLean: And what does that involve for you? What does the work actually involve?

Sean Welsh: It’s really varied, in fact. I mean, sometimes it’s a case of we have a subtitle file that we just have to adapt, which is to say that it’s an English language file and we need to add SDH or captioned elements, which is sound labels and sound effects and things like that. So, sometimes, it’s relatively straightforward. And other times we have to do the whole thing from scratch, which is that we have to transcribe the English dialogue as well as add these elements for Deaf and Hard of Hearing audiences. And the quality of the films, or rather, the content of the films, is really varied as well and it depends on who we’ve been doing it for. We’ve done a lot of work with the Glasgow Short Film Festival, who were actually one of the first to embrace this, the idea of making their programme as accessible as possible. We worked with them a little bit last year and they’ve been building up their provision year on year, until this year, when, of course, initially, they were supposed to happen earlier in the year, but they had to postpone and then eventually delivered their whole programme online. And their whole programme this year was accessible in terms of captions, which is a huge undertaking for us. And it’s a real big investment and time for them as well. So it was really nice to see that.

Pauline McLean: And this kind of lockdown time gave you that chance to be able to sit down and do this, didn’t it? I mean it, it sounds like quite a dream job, but, in other ways, it also sounds quite laborious. You’re not just sitting watching films, you’re having to basically take them apart and put them back together again, with words anyway.

Sean Welsh: Ah, sure, I mean, if you want to stop enjoying something, you make it work. But, at the same time, we’re really grateful to be able to work like this. I mean, it’s great to have a sense of purpose about it, it’s great to work with films, but, of course, if you are working with films, day-in, day-out, it can become a little onerous. And of course, when you’re working on a film, it’s potentially up to six times as long as the film itself, you’re spending, even more than that, in fact, to produce the subtitles. So, if you imagine a film is an hour, an hour and a half long, you’re talking around a day, a day, maybe a working day, at the very least, usually about two days to do the subtitles, which is a long time to spend with any film.

Pauline McLean: So, Megan, are there particular films that you think, “Never again, I just don’t want to see that one again.”

Megan Mitchell: I think we’re quite lucky, because we’ve been able to work with a variety of festivals and exhibitors, that, every week, there’s something new and something interesting. And I think that, personally, we’ve been exposed to films that are just so varied and so interesting, in terms of their different content and approach and style that, actually, even though it can be quite arduous, I guess, to be doing it day-in, day-out, that there’s still always something fresh and exciting and you’re always reminded how important film as an art form and as a medium is,

Pauline McLean: Tell us a little bit about the original organisation that you set up Matchbox Cineclub. You originally, I guess, had five festivals that you’ve added to that, and you’re looking particularly at cult film. I think the only one that I have been to in the list, and I thought it was fabulous, was Cage-a-rama which is devoted to the films of Nicolas Cage. How did that come about?

Sean Welsh: The potted history of Matchbox is that it was founded by a chap called Tommy McCormick, who is very creative and very active in producing these kinds of organisations and events. And he started Matchbox as a way to screen short films, because, at that time, there wasn’t that many options for seeing short films on the big screen. And I got involved pretty quickly afterwards, because I wanted to get experience as a film programmer and basically took over almost entirely, but Tommy was on to bigger and better things. And then we screened pop-up screenings of cult films, essentially. And then Megan came onboard, and then our shared love of Nicolas Cage begat Cage-a-rama.

Nicolas Cage: Going to detain a blighter for enjoying his whisky?

Man: Enough.

Cage: Bangers and mash! Bubbles and squeak! Smoked eel pie!

Man: Sir?

Cage: Haggis!

Man: That’s it! Dismount the banister!

Sean Welsh: We decided that it was probably a good idea to spend an inordinate amount of time celebrating Nicolas Cage. And so we’ve done that.

Pauline McLean: Well, I was going to say, you’re not alone. For some reason, there’s a real love for Nicolas Cage in Glasgow.

Megan Mitchell: I think that, one, he’s just the best actor that’s ever lived. I’m actually the world’s leading academic on Valley Girl, which was Nicolas Cage’s first feature film, as “Nicolas Cage”.

VO: Valley Girl.

Cage: She’s out there somewhere.

VO: This is the story of a boy from Hollywood who never dreamed the girl he’d want most was down here.

Nicolas Cage as Randy in Valley Girl, wearing 3D glasses and smoking a cigarette — Randy (Nicolas Cage) in Valley Girl

Megan Mitchell: I think that me and Sean and the audience of Cage-a-rama have this shared sincere interest in Cage as an actor, as a an entity larger than life. And I think that that’s how we came to this idea of Matchbox being cult films for cult audiences, because, of course, programming Matchbox normally, outwith Cage-a-rama and our KeanuCons and things, which are maybe more known films, we’re screening stuff that you can’t see anywhere else – lost films, unknown films, cult in the sense that you really need to dig to find them. So, that unifying thread across our programming is really that cult, in, I guess, a more flexible and fluid sense, but always has that sincerity and joy that you find within these films.

Pauline McLean: But I guess also not taking itself too seriously. I think one of the films that I saw, I think last year, at the second festival was almost like a sort of pantomime audience, you know, people were kind of cheering the, you know, the particular lines that appealed to them, or…

Megan Mitchell: I was just gonna mention an event that we did that, I think, is a really nice example of audience participation in that heightened event. We hosted a funeral for the six-second video platform Vine.

[New Orleans second line funeral music]

Megan Mitchell: Some people might know that have, I guess, cult status, in terms of some of its videos and creators. And we hosted a very elaborate funeral with a mourning band and Puke, who’s a drag question performing this amazing performance with which the audience joined in, completely unprompted, with their phone lights, and had been repeating all of the Vines back to the screen itself.

[Music continues]

Audience in darkened room hold phones with lights aloft like lighters — The audience at Auld Lang Vine #RIPVine at CCA Glasgow (27/01/2019)

Megan Mitchell: And I think that we create or we try to create an environment within Matchbox events where all the audience and I think that this is where captions and accessible ticket pricing come in, feel comfortable and feel that they can engage to a level that they’re comfortable with and feel supported to do that in an environment that maybe ordinary cinemas or ordinary film screenings don’t create or haven’t been able to quite grasp yet. And I think that that’s core to the things that we want to continue to do is achieve that environment of… welcomeness, I guess, and feeling that you can be a part of all of this.

[Music continues]

Pauline McLean: And, Sean, is the ambition, eventually, to have either Nicolas Cage or Keanu Reeves come to their own festivals?

Sean Welsh: Well, we’re always, since year one of Cage-a-rama, we’ve been in contact with Cage’s agent and we’ve always been heartened by the fact that, in year four of a similar festival in the States, he took part, he came down, he had programmed the films, he came along, he officiated an engagement, I think, and he read some Edgar Allan Poe poems, before sitting and watching his own films with the audience. So, we’ve always been encouraged by the fact that that happened. So far, we haven’t quite been able to tie the knot. It’s always exciting, because he tends to spend his festive period in the UK, he has a house in Bath. And so he is usually around when we, when our festival happens, or, because we do it around about his birthday, which is in early January. And so we always think there’s a possibility is gonna pop in. But we’re kind of like a dog that chases a car. I’m not sure what we’d do, if we got him.

[Music – “Old Lost John” by Sonny Terry]

But one day, one day, and the invitation is always open, and we’re always having that kind of communication. Keanu’s a different thing, I think, because I think he’s quite humble, and a wee bit shy, and I think he’d probably be… I’m not sure he’d necessarily be comfortable in that kind of scenario. But we’ll see we’ve, we’ve got a lot of room in our hearts for Keanu, I’m sure everyone else does as well.

Keanu Reeves: When I left home, the maid asked me where I was off to. I said, “Wherever, whatever. Have a nice day.”

Sean Welsh: We thought we’d extend the invitation vice versa. I mean, they’re always welcome to come to any of our events, as is anyone – that’s the idea, open, open to everyone.

Megan Mitchell: Well, we delivered an online festival Tales From Winnipeg, which was actually more of a showcase, I guess, of purest Matchbox programming, so we had a Matchbox favourite John Paizs’ Crime Wave. We had Guy Maddin’s Cowards Bend the Knee, scored by the wonderful Ela Orleans, and the Tales from the Winnipeg Film Group documentary. And that was really interesting, because that was our first foray, I guess, into online programming. And we were even on the local Winnipeggian news chatting about it and that was quite fun.

But I think, for us, we have been really lucky this year in terms of keeping busy, I guess, with captioning and the advocacy work that we’ve been doing around that. And of course, the award, for the captioning work that we’ve been doing, has been really nice and there’s been something really comforting, I guess, for us, being able to be busy during such a uncertain time. But I think moving forward, audiences are always going to want to come together and join in on something really special and I think cinemas and our festivals particularly offer something above and beyond watching films on Netflix or on streaming sites. So, 2021, we’ll see how comfortable we are delivering things to audiences. I also think, as well, that we’re really lucky in being independent film exhibitors, in that we can take the choices that feel right for us and our audiences and not have to take any, I guess, risks based on any economic factors, if we were cinema, for example. So I think, for us, we’re just biding our time, I guess. I don’t think you ever stop programming, there’s always things squirrelled away, you know – a Tik Tok festival might be next.

Sean Welsh: We have, it’s fair to say, lots and lots of ideas. And just like everyone else, it’s a real, a real shame that we’ve had to kind of wipe the board clean this year. But we’ve always said we’d prefer to be best rather than first, so even, there’s all these challenges, like Megan says, in terms of safety and looking after your audiences, because that’s the most important thing to us, and so…and we also have to deal with that thing that a lot of people in groups that are in the same position as us are in because it’s difficult for us to screen mainstream films online, you know, so we couldn’t necessarily present Cage-a-rama online. Obviously, I think we’d prefer to be able to see our audience and experience the films with them in real life. But even a version of it would be tricky for us to deliver online because…just because of the way the industry works. So, there are things we can do and there are things we may do and, like I say, we’re bursting with ideas. But we’ll just have to wait and see.

Pauline McLean: I think, in one of your discussion forums, you were recommending in a sense that for some festivals, the right thing is to do nothing, to kind of step back and not to attempt to push everything online. You were just explaining there why it’s not always possible to put things online. It also doesn’t always have the same feel, there is that balance to be achieved, isn’t there?

Megan Mitchell: Yeah. And I think that, particularly in the early point of lockdown, and going through the pandemic, quite a lot of cinemas and festivals and independent exhibitors, very rightly so, were concerned about their audiences and wanting to stay very actively engaged with them. And I think that when, we, I guess, it was during Scalarama, said that perhaps doing nothing is a better use of time, I think that none of these people in the sector are ever going to be doing nothing, but advocating for taking the time to think about how we can better the sector and improve our own events when we do get back to doing the big in-real-life things that we love. And again, we come back to captioning. Captioning’s a big part of that. And I think we’ve seen a lot of festivals and independent exhibitors who, one, have had maybe more time to think about access in a slightly different way, really engaging with captioning as a process and a real way in for audiences who maybe wouldn’t be able to engage with their events otherwise, online or not. But also cinema might be in a crisis at the moment but it’s also an opportunity and we’re seeing a lot of really exciting, urgent and important issues being discussed, not just access, but across the board in the sector. And I think that actually, that’s a really heartening thing. Even if it’s quite a scary time for cinemas themselves.

Pauline McLean: I was going to say, one of the interesting things has been, aside from Tenet, there hasn’t really been anything blockbuster-wise, this year. So, it’s given any indie films that are out there a little bit more scope than they normally would have. And I presume it also allows for those audiences, and those kind of films to have a bit more of the attention.

Sean Welsh: I think it’s fair to say that, in one sense, like, doing stuff online is great and to be able to embrace it is great. And there’s lots of different elements of online that the in-real-life events can’t offer and one of them is accessibility. But on the other hand, we don’t have the pressures that a venue has, in terms of overheads and staff and continuity of their audience. And one thing that we’re very aware of is that it would be great if more of us this kind of niche content and lesser-exposed films had a chance. But, truthfully, there’s such shifting sands for cinemas, because they have to try to get bums on seats, but they’re also dealing with an ever-changing landscape. And it’s not just about whether or not films will or will not be released, you’ve seen Wonder Woman 1984 is now going to get released day and date streaming and in theatres. That kind of thing disrupts planning for cinemas because, in a normal run of things, they have things booked several months in advance. And they also know that they’re going to be open. So, if you don’t know you’re going to be open from week to week, and you don’t know what studio releases are going to be available to you, it’s incredibly difficult to plan. And so that’s… We’re aware that, in the sector, there’s, like, a real challenge and a real need for venues and cinemas to be supported through this. It would seem that there’s an opportunity to programme these lesser known films. But unfortunately, it’s not always as simple as that.

Pauline McLean: Going back to the subject of access to films and the subtitling work that you’ve done, the reminder in the midst of all of this is that not everyone has broadband, not everyone has internet access. Is there a danger that we may have taken a step back in making film accessible because it’s going to be small, when cinemas do reopen, they’re going to be much, much smaller capacity. So, you know, how do you then cater for the people who felt they’d been left out?

Megan Mitchell: I think that this is a big question for cinemas in terms of access overall, because I don’t think it’s about stepping backwards with access online or the progression of online versus in-venue. I think that these are all deeply interconnected and very hard to untangle issues of barriers to access for audiences. So, digital poverty is playing a big part now, in terms of audiences who maybe would regularly attend cinemas but don’t have the digital technology or the internet to do so. But we’re also seeing a rising awareness I guess, in cinemas, of these issues, so, digital poverty, even when cinemas are able to or do open their doors, we have high-risk audience members, we have audience members who just can’t step over that threshold any more, even from their own home and so I think it’s just about all of these different – as it always has been in cinema – different issues of barriers to access interplaying. But, again, I think cinemas are starting to untangle all of that. And, even though there may be some deeply rooted problems, in terms of access – I’m thinking particularly around the cost of a cinema ticket, and the actual ability to enter these independent cinemas and feel that they’re a space for yourself – that we’re slowly starting to address different issues of access in a way that sets out a really strong model for addressing all of the other issues. And again, captioning being a brilliant example of exhibitors really starting to consciously think about how they can unpick these barriers and be proactive, because, actually, underpinning all of the issues within independent exhibition and independence cinemas is actions that are necessary to bring about change. And I think that we’re seeing a really exciting energy around independence cinemas that want that change and, hopefully, the pandemic has sped up some of the really useful ways of doing that. So, taking things online, thinking differently about access online and hopefully bringing that back into the cinemas.

Matchbox’s version of the increasingly popular sliding scale model for ticketing

Pauline McLean: So, rather than taking a step backwards, it could actually be an important reset moment?

Megan Mitchell: Definitely, I think the pandemic’s allowed cinemas to accelerate some of the changes that were already slowly in place, with going online, thinking about access differently online. But it’s also gave cinemas, I guess, a shock in terms of audiences and thinking about their audiences. So now, older audiences are maybe less likely to want to attend cinema screenings, but younger audiences might. And that’s a real question, I guess, for independent cinemas who have previously struggled with young audiences and maybe have rested on their laurels slightly with their access commitments and now is the time, I think, we’re really seeing an urgent need for change, but also the will for that to happen as well.

Sean Welsh: It’s important to note that we didn’t invent access, and we didn’t invent captioning for screenings, but what we were able to do is to show how it was possible to do it and to do it affordably. Because there was a will there, it’s just that we had to kind of… we helped to join up the dots. And we’ve kind of seen a real, real sense of a sea change, even over the course of this year. Because we can see that some of the people we’re working with year on year, the distributors and the film-makers are more likely to have caption files already, because they’re thinking about it. So we can see that there’s a change there that’s kind of coming in. And particularly across Scotland, obviously, we’ve done a lot of work with a lot of festivals, and even the ones that we haven’t had complete coverage, they’re starting maybe one strand, and then next year they’ll look at doing more. And we’re also showing them how to do it internally, to an extent, if they can manage that, so that it’s a bit more sustainable, you know, because it’s not just screenings, of course, it’s, like, trailers and any content they put online – clips, or if they do Q&As, all of these things. And so it’s progress. And I think, on one hand, it’s important to see it as a continuity. And, on the other hand, it’s a really good idea to lose patience with this stuff and to say, “No, it has to happen now.” Because it should happen now, it should have already happened. And, so, the more you kind of kick it into the long grass, if you allow that to happen, that’s what will happen, it’ll be put off and it’ll be put off. And, so, this pandemic, and everything around it has really been horrendous. And so when there’s an opportunity for something positive to come from it, I think it’s really good that we can seize it. And I would add to that also that audiences as a whole, and even specific audiences for cinema are much more comfortable with subtitles. In fact, before the pandemic, when we had committed to having open captioning on all our screenings, which means that subtitles are always on, no matter what, we never had any complaints from audience members. And I think there’s a wee bit of people assume that audiences are going to kick off if they’re presented with a subtitled screening. And I think it happens less than, less than people might expect and I think it’s no longer a viable excuse to not do it. It’s great to see organisations taking it on to the point where they can explain to their audiences, why they’re doing it, and bring audiences with them. Because that’s really what it’s all about.

Pauline McLean: You mentioned that you both relocated to Bristol, but it sounds like you’re still very much able to do what you do and be involved in everything that’s happening in Scotland from there.

Megan Mitchell: Definitely. I think, thanks to Zoom, and the pandemic, we probably could have moved and no-one would have known we weren’t in Glasgow any more, but it’s been really exciting for us to just come to a different context and particularly Bristol, where it has so many wonderful independent exhibitors and the Watershed Cinema that we’re able to, I guess, re-route and continue our activism for captions in a new context and a context that’s also hungry for change and are really proactive in terms of accessibility. But we’re still keeping our hands in Scotland.

Sean Welsh: I think there’s another thing that goes hand in hand with the kind of accessibility that we’ve always, we’ve chased and we’ve tried to bake in, more and more increasingly. Collaboration and cooperation have always been really important to us. We don’t believe in gatekeeping for the industry and we believe in sharing resources, and sharing advice and expertise. And, so, I think that increasingly, there’s a there’s a strong network, and it’s a network based on that kind of collegial atmosphere. And I hope we’ve been able to contribute to that and we certainly have seen there’s other people who have really responded to the fact that we put a lot of import on that. So, I think that’s the kind of thing that is portable. And we would like to stretch across the UK…and beyond!

Pauline McLean: And also, I guess, if you’re in Bristol, you’re just that little bit closer to Nicolas Cage, if he happens to pop in to his house in Bath.

Sean Welsh: If we happen to pop down and wait outside his house?

[Laughter]

Nicolas Cage: No, not the bees!

Pauline McLean: One last question for you, which is, you, know… And I ask this of so many people who work in the world of film or cinema, do you still get a joy out of going to the cinema? Can you still switch off and relax and go see a film just for the joy of it?

Megan Mitchell: Oh, absolutely. When we moved to Bristol and managed to get to the Watershed Cinema, which was the first time that I had been to the cinema since February, and the longest time that I hadn’t been inside a cinema for maybe 15 years, It just was joyful. It just felt like you were coming home. And I think that we still retain that passion for cinema in the purest sense, that we understand how transformative and how impactful films and cinema can be for people, because we still feel that. Yeah, I can only agree with that. It makes such a huge difference to have a venue that you can trust to make it safe and make you feel welcome and make you feel looked after. If nothing else, you know, people can get an idea of what a cinema really is. Because it’s not just putting films on. You could put films online and people can see the films – the same amount of people could see the films you screen, but from your website. And that’s not the cinematic experience. That’s not what a cinema is, and I think, if nothing else, again, the pandemic has pulled that into focus.

Presenter: Thanks for listening and don’t forget to tune in to the programme live, at 8:00 every Saturday and Sunday morning.

All of Matchbox Cineclub’s programmed is subtitled for the deaf and hard of hearing. Keep up to date with our events by signing up to our mailing list, here, or find our events on Facebook here. For more information on our subtitling service, read our dedicated page here.

Interview: Guy Maddin on autobiography, Euripedes + Cowards Bend the Knee

Ahead of our Tales from Winnipeg season, which features Guy Maddin’s Cowards Bend the Knee, with Ela Orleans’s new score, Cathy Brennan spoke to the director about the project

In 2017, we commissioned Ela Orleans to write and perform a new score for Guy Maddin’s 2003 film Cowards Bend the Knee. It was a connection suggested by journalist Brian Beadie, a dream project for Ela and, it turned out, a dream come true for Guy. For our first online programme, Tales from Winnipeg, we’re thrilled to present the film with Ela’s studio recording of the score for the first time, and delighted to have Guy’s participation – he’ll introduce the film and joins Ela for an hour-long In Conversation afterwards. Before that, Cathy Brennan spoke to Guy to get his thoughts on the film’s origins.

Cathy Brennan: In your 2002 interview with Robert Enright, you said you thought that Cowards Bend the Knee might be your last film. Given how prolific you’ve been in the years since, how have your feelings about the film evolved?

Guy Maddin: Wow, I don’t remember saying it would be the last film. I tend to be self-pitying and melodramatic, so I probably just say that before every film. What I say now has evolved into “I’m going to make this as if it’s my last film.” In other words I’m going to give it my best shot and hope that it represents what I’ve been trying to do all these years in the best possible way.

I can barely watch any of movies as they age because they represent the work of someone I no longer am. It’s embarrassing, it would be like watching yourself struggling with some things that you’ve long ago since learnt how to do. A lot of people wouldn’t be that comfortable with having non-filmic work put on public display a couple of decades after they’ve made it.

I’ve always viewed my films as inventories of errors rather than an accumulation of accomplishments. There’s a couple of exceptions: I like watching The Green Fog, a movie we made in 2017. We actually watched it with audiences a few times . And I’ve watched Cowards Bend the Knee now maybe five times over the last 18 years and been quite proud of it, actually.

There’s a few things I’d change; the first six-minute chapter gets off to a bit of a slow start, but, then, once it gets going, I’m very proud of it. I remember the feeling I had while I made it. I felt like I was really in a zone, you know, where every time I pointed my camera I found something worth shooting. I made plot connections in my head as I was shooting. It was a real frenzy of creativity and I just made this humble 62-minute long feature. To make it in five very short work days -really just half days-was something I’m very proud of.

Like I say, it just came out in one piece there’s so many autobiographical elements in it I could just assemble my cast of characters and keep them all handy at all times and then start putting them through their uninhibited motions, their disinhibited emotions based on real life events. I dunno, I wish I could make all my films like that.

I followed up by making another silent film that also played with live musical accompaniment Brand Upon The Brain. And that came out in one piece as well but just not quite as insanely. It’s more of an epic and it’s much longer. This one [Cowards] really felt as crazed as I was when I lived the events.

Maya Lawson & Katherine E. Scharhon in Brand Upon the Brain (Guy Maddin, 2006)

I wanted to ask a bit about your working relationship with Ela. How did it start? What are your thoughts on her score for Cowards, and do you have a favourite section in it?

I love the whole score. Ela may have a different version of this but I think she just asked if she could make a score and I said “yeah” and then she sent me her work as it progressed. I think she just worked through it in order or at least that’s how I got it – Chapters 1 through 10, in script order from her.

I’m very grateful for her opening, the chapter 1 score because I basically just DJ’d the original movie with old classical music chestnuts and the piece of music I had put in there before was so dreary. The opening six minutes felt like 20 minutes and felt like just a list of character names to be memorised for a test, or something like that. She just came up with a piece that brought it to life much more. It didn’t change the visual content, but it sure seemed like it did. It quickened the pace of the cutting. The pure exposition clumsily conveyed by me in that chapter was just made more pleasurable to assimilate, made it seem more part of the story rather than just exposition shovelled down the throats of the viewers. So, I’m most grateful for that.

I love the way she keeps shifting gears and even when she brings vocals in at one point which surprises me and which comes as a really welcome surprise. I don’t think I really thought of a favourite section, but I’ve just kind of marvelled at her sense of pacing and how she changes it up. I often think in baseball metaphors, so I don’t know how useful that is for you over there [in the UK], but just the way a pitcher is more successful if he changes speeds and location and curves each pitch in the idea is to keep the variety coming. So, in Ela’s case, I just like the way she startles the ear every few minutes and it just feels right. She’s got a really strong intuition for it.

I hesitate to use the word, because it sounds so corporate but there’s this great synergy between Ela’s score and your film. I believe you you mentioned in that 2002 conversation about the atmosphere, while filming Cowards, being very mischievous, and I sort of detect that same sense of mischief in her score, particularly with sound effects. I think there’s one bit dressing room and Dr Fusi just smacks one of the players on the butt and there’s a cartoon “thwack” sound.

Some of the sound effects came over from the original soundtrack, but she was smart enough to keep them, another she deleted, and then others she created herself and I think she created that one. I dunno, she’s just she’s just really on the right wavelength, that’s all I know.

I’ve had other alternate scores done for this very movie, actually. It’s been really interesting comparing them, but Ela really comes closest. Not closest, Ela is a true collaborator. I was going to say she comes closest to getting what I’m up to but, no, it’s more than that. A collaborator’s actually supposed to make you look better, and she does do that.

It’s kind of like you know Bernard Herrmann and Hitchcock not that I’m Hitchcock. It’s just you can feel when Bernard Herrmann’s score in Vertigo was actually making the movie way better, and I love that. but I just think of it as a collaboration among all of its makers and you can feel the with Ela in that first chapter. She really gets the movie going off to the start that I failed to supply. I remember an anecdote about Vertigo where Hitchcock handed the reel where Jimmy Stewart is just driving around for 10 minutes in front of rear screen projection. And he [Hitchcock] just handed it to Herrmann and said, “This reel is all yours,” you know, something to that effect. It feels good to make a movie, knowing you can just hand something off to somebody and know they’ll make you look better.

My version of synergy is, every now and then, I come up limping and have to hand it off to Ela and I know she’ll haul me out of the trenches and across no-man’s-land in spite of all the mustard gas and deliver something that looks a lot better than my carcass.

That’s really sweet.

Oh, yeah.

Cowards Bend the Knee with Ela Orleans score poster (Illustration by Marc Baines, 2020)

If you don’t mind. I just wanted to shift the little bit to talk about about the Winnipeg Film Group. The documentary Tales From was kind of a whistlestop tour of the history of the group.

I haven’t seen it, you know? It’s strange. I’m in it, I think, but I was scared to watch it. I can’t stand watching myself.

You were in it for about five minutes and come across very well, if I may say so. I just wanted to know a bit more about the role that the film group had on the production of Cowards specifically.

Right. I don’t remember them having much to do with Cowards. Let’s see, I owned the cameras. I had about six Super 8 cameras just in case one broke down, I’d keep five spare Super 8 cameras in the boot of my car and whenever one wound down I’d run out and go get another one. I own the light I think we only used one light most of the time we might have rented a few lights from the film group and as a member I got cheap rates – $10 a light a day or something like that.

Since making Cowards, the film group have taken to distributing it and they’ve been very good about that. But I remember making the film almost secretly. I was in pre-production on another film at the time in 2003 I shot The Saddest Music in the World which was a much bigger budgeted movie. It was $3.5 million then. Still small I guess but the biggest I’ve ever had. and Cowards Bend the Knee was $5,000 to build a few sets and to get the film stock purchased and processed. My producers on Saddest Music in the World would have been very upset to know I was working on another project so during pre-production I would sneak away for the greater part of five days in a row and shot Cowards Bend the Knee. And, so, no-one really knew about it other than the cast members of Cowards and and then some of them later appeared just a few weeks later in Saddest Music in the World.

It was 18 years ago that I shot it in like October or September 2002 so there are snow plows just out of frame all the time. There’s some real hockey ice and a nearby hockey rink that we went to on the very first morning and shot off all the hockey, so slightly out of script order and then went back and shot all the dry land stuff in this snow plow garage. I don’t recall anyone noticing and I would have meetings about Saddest Music in the World that I would have to hop in my car and drive a few blocks over to the other studio to make Cowards and then come back and keep shooting Saddest Music. Of the two, I loved making both those movies , but I really love the outlaw aspects of making a movie on the sly. Normally you think of guerrilla filmmaking you think of hiding from the police and not using permits and and running from one suspicious person to another out on the streets, but I covertly went into the snow plow go up and was hiding from no police officers at all. I even insured the movie shoot in case someone fell to their deaths at the Winnipeg Arena. So it was legitimate that way. I just didn’t want my producers the other film to know so in that way it’s a strange form of guerrilla film-making. Another example of how sketchy and sneaky I am sometimes for no reason when I could have just been straight up and said, “Hey, I’m shooting this thing, please permit me to miss a few hours of work in this other place.” Instead, I had to prop up a dummy that looked like me in my office of this other shoot and set it off so I could make my escape Alcatraz-style.

The secretive nature of the production fits that underworld, psychological aspect of Cowards, like the salon/bordello and the secret wax museum.

I think everything everything fitted but that just repressed the whole endeavour and seemed to make it even more urgent and more explosively powerful when I did let spill on some really humiliating confessions. because the movie is nothing if it’s not a big ejaculation of shameful reminiscences and ejaculations were far better for being shot illicitly.

I just want to picture it back to the Film Group. This is a bit of a selfish question, but when I was watching the documentary I found myself making a list of films and film-makers to watch. Are there any young filmmakers working at the group now whose work you’re excited by?

Yeah, I haven’t seen much lately, but I know Matthew Rankin has made a feature recently called The Twentieth Century, which a lot of people loved. I’ve seen the shorts made leading up to it and I really like them and so I would say that one’s worth a look among the new ones.

I also like Mike Merinec. He might be working just outside the film group. You know what film co-ops are like:people fall in love with each other and then there’s inevitably some kind of falling out. So Mike’s working may well have been made after a falling out or something. There’s often a board that’s at odds with the film-makers and all sorts of inner intrigue. Or people start sleeping with each other accidentally and grudges start to form and all sorts of stuff. That’s just sort of inevitable. It’s sort of like a rock band in that way.

One last question: your film films often hark back to the past. How do you think the meaning of that backward-looking perspective changes depending on how a viewer engages with the film? For example, if it was shown in a cinema or through an online screening like Matchbox are doing with Cowards Bend the Knee, where people may be watching on their phones or tablets.

Yeah, it’s beyond me, in a way. I kind of just made it the way I did. I started off in 16mm and always assumed I would move graduate to 35mm and then, God knows, maybe even 70mm Cinerama. Y’know, big budget Hollywood films. But I quickly stalled after getting a chance to make a film in 35mm in the late ’90s, a film I didn’t like at all, and so I wandered around in a desert for a few years.

Then one of my students, a guy named Decko Dawson, with whom I made a short film called Heart of the World which is shot in both 16 and Super 8. This student of mine had this film that just looked so cool and I just realised that 35mm and all the corporate sophistication that I was just starting to get whiffs of could be just ignored utterly. If I made a plunge back into the more primitive gauges of Super 8 where green and shadow, the tendency towards high-contrast imagery because it has an auto aperture on it, would just plunge me more into a kind of a mythic past.

Since the subject matter that interested me most was the dawn of my memory and even my prehistory, sort of a mythological figuring out of my earliest years or my earliest attempts at being sexual or ethical. Just those early primitive attempts at doing the right thing seemed almost Euripidean in their flaws and murkiness and timelessness somehow. I seem to be making exactly the same mistakes as characters in 2,500-year-old Euripedes plays and I seem to be making them with some atavistic connection to the darkest roots of such mistakes.

It just seemed like the lower the gauge, the deeper I punished myself into the very Earth, the depths of my most murky thought processes. The kind I guess when you’re just beginning and you’re just forming your lips into a hungry circle in the hopes you’ll be fed, to the slightly more sophisticated point where you’re lying to a friend to seduce his girlfriend.

It just all seemed to line up: the black and white, the wordlessness. I guess silent film is just one step closer to cave painting than talking pictures. They’re just images saying things. Now I do have intertitles with plenty of text and I’ve even thought recently about replacing all those with bright, crisp, new digital ones. But I like the way I shot the intertitles in that movie with the same kind of reckless spirit with which I shot all the humans acting things. It turns out they’re all out of focus, but I decided to keep them anyway because I felt this should come out in one piece. And so it did.

Tickets for Tales from Winnipeg are on sale via Eventive here.

An edited/alternative version of this interview appears in our Tales from Winnipeg zine (free for weekend pass holders, available to purchase separately here).

Keep up-to-date with the Tales from Winnipeg Facebook event page here.

The season is part of Film Feels Connected, a UK-wide cinema season, supported by the National Lottery and BFI Film Audience Network. Explore all films and events at filmfeels.co.uk.

The season is supported by Film Feels Connected, Film Hub Scotland and the High Commission of Canada in the UK. #CanadaGoesDigital

Subtitled screenings March-April 2020

We’ve produced brand-new SDH/captions for D/deaf audiences for three upcoming events in Scotland, for a total of 53 films(!)

19-22/03 Glasgow Short Film Festival 2020
Fri 27/03 Arrow Video Night: Why Don’t You Just Die!
25-26/04 Remakesploitation Fest

For the second year, we’ve worked with Glasgow Short Film Festival, this time expanding coverage to nine feature-length programmes of shorts, including the entirety of their Scotttish Competition and our own Girl in the Picture: The Youth Films of Nobuhiko Obayashi programme. The latter celebrates the early, experimental work of the House director and includes films subtitled in English for the first time. We’ve worked with translator Moe Shoji to produce SDH for these films, and they represent the start of a bigger project we’re very excited about – watch this space!

Find all the captioned films screening at GSFF20 here.

Why Don’t You Just Die! (Kirill Sokolov, 2020) is the first in our new, monthly screening series Arrow Video Night, in collaboration with Arrow Video. Arrow produces SDH for all their home releases, but we’ll guarantee them either way, since some of the programme will be sneak previews and descriptive subtitles may not be ready in time for our screenings. Why Don’t You Just Die! is a prime slice of Russian splatterpunk comedy, lots of fun and an advance screening ahead of its Blu-ray release in April.

More information and tickets here.

Remakesploitation Fest is our collaboration with Iain Robert Smith (King’s College London/Remakesploitation Film Club) and the result of a long, long infatuation with the weird world of Turkish fantastic cinema – particularly the era which featured countless unauthorised remakes of Hollywood films. Following our sold-out premiere screening of the 2K restoration of Turkish Star Wars (Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam) last year, we’re bringing a whole day of Turkish remakes to CCA Glasgow, all with exclusive, brand-new translations, screening for the first time in the world with English SDH. Thanks to King’s College London and Film Hub Scotland for making this possible!

More information and tickets here.

If you are interested in commissioning subtitles for a screening, event, festival or release, or would simply like to know how it works, get in touch: info@matchboxcineclub.com.