Tag: Bristol

Shelf Life + Q&A

Matchbox return with the never-released, undiscovered final feature film from legendary director Paul Bartel!

We’re back, with our first ever hybrid event! SHELF LIFE (Paul Bartel, 1993) + Pre-recorded Cast Q&A with O-Lan Jones, Andrea Stein, Jim Turner and filmmaker Alex Mechanik is Matchbox’s first screening since January 2020.

We have a very limited capacity physical event at Cube Microplex, Bristol, 7pm on Friday 27/08 and an internationally-available, unlimited-availability online version via Eventive, from 7pm Friday 27/08 – Sunday 29/08. Attendees of the physical event will also get access to the online version, and a copy of our print publication. The programme includes a Paul Bartel trailer reel, new cast introductions and a vintage interview with Paul Bartel. The physical event will be open captioned with our new cast-approved descriptive subtitles and the online programme will have optional descriptive subtitles and brand-new audio description on the film only.

TICKETS: matchboxcine.eventive.org

SYNOPSIS: Tina, Pam, and Scotty are taken down into Mom and Dad’s well-stocked bomb shelter when Kennedy is assassinated in 1963…and they never come out. Thirty years later, Mom and Dad are a long-dead ‘bag of bones’ and the now-grown kids have created a life for themselves based on remnants from the ’60s, intermittent output from the TV and their wild imaginations.

BACKGROUND: Shelf Life was conceived and written by O-Lan Jones, Andrea Stein and Jim Turner as a result of their rumination on what must become of people boxed in tiny spaces for long, long periods of time. Director Paul Bartel (Eating Raoul, Death Race 2000, Lust in the Dust) saw the closing night performance of the play in 1992 and within six weeks they had begun shooting the film, complete with a fully fabricated fallout shelter on the stages of CFI in Hollywood. Despite a strong festival run and positive reviews, Shelf Life remained unreleased and never found the audience it deserved. After decades underground, the last remaining 35mm print was uncovered at the film archive of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and digitally restored – this is the UK premiere!

Q&A: This will be recorded in advance, partly to enable us to make it accessible, with quality subtitles. We record on 14/08, and you can pose questions any time between now and then via Slido: bit.ly/ShelfSlido

ZINE: We’re producing a new zine to accompany the event, with new artwork from Calvin Halliday and new responses to Shelf Life from emerging writers, including Logan Kenny. This will be free to all ticket holders and available to purchase separately.

TICKETS: Both physical and online events are priced on a sliding scale: you decide what to pay (£0-£8), with reference to our guide: bit.ly/matchboxscale

ACCESS: The screening will have brand-new, cast-approved descriptive subtitles, created by Matchbox Cinesub. The online version of the event will have optional descriptive subtitles for the entire programme and optional, brand-new audio description for the film. NB Cube Microplex is not wheelchair accessible.

VENUE + SOCIAL DISTANCING: Attendees will be required to wear a mask. We have limited seating to allow for social distancing – two seats between each set and every other row unsold. NB we are adhering to the advice of the UK Government but we also reserve the right to exercise our own judgement, should we feel the event is unsafe to deliver. In the case of cancellation, refunds will be issued automatically. NB Cube Microplex is not wheelchair accessible.

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

We’re leaving Glasgow

After 10 years of hosting film events all around Glasgow, we’re moving to Bristol

After ten years (and a particularly busy most recent five), Matchbox Cineclub is leaving Glasgow and relocating to Bristol.

For at least the next three years, we’re going to be based in Bristol. We’ll be back every so often (we have at least one Glasgow event planned in 2021), but mostly we’ll be in Bristol, and we don’t yet know what that’ll mean for any IRL events.

This weekend (3rd-6th September, 2020), we should’ve been hosting Weird Weekend III at CCA Glasgow. 2020, cursed year, should’ve seen our cult film festival level up to a much bigger festival. Our plans and even programming for it have been underway since before last year’s festival. Those plans had to be scrapped, rethought, redeveloped, revised and the scrapped again. We accounted for postponement, downscaling, hybrid approaches and completely online versions, but it just wasn’t meant to be this year.

We will be doing more online programming, like our Tales From Winnipeg online-only season, and Weird Weekend will certainly return in some form. But we also want to take some time to rest (we’ve also subtitled 250+ films in the last two months) and regroup, for the first time in several years.

We’ll be handing over the reins of Scalarama Glasgow year-round planning and delivery too (let us know if you’re interested in being involved with that!), and we’re very glad to look around and see so many great independent film exhibitors in Glasgow – folks like Backseat Bingo, Cinemaattic Glasgow, Pity Party Film Club, Queer Classics, Red Thread Film Club, Southern Exposure, Trash cinema, Unmellow Movies, Venom Mob Film Club and many more. Hopefully they’ll all be back screening films before too long.

We want to say a very big thank you to everyone who has supported us over the last 10(!) years in Glasgow, particularly CCA Glasgow, The Old Hairdressers, Film Hub Scotland, all our fellow exhibitors, to everyone that’s come to one of our events and, most of all, to those of you who’ve come to several.

It’s very strange to be planning to leave like this. We would’ve loved to host a farewell screening or just had some drinks in a big room, but none of that’s possible. Maybe, with no rooms to set, A/V to prep, bands to soundcheck, bookings to find, tickets to take, guests to entertain, merch to sell, last-minute social media to do, etc, etc, we’d have finally properly prepared an address for the audience, rather than busking some last-minute jibber-jabber. But then probably not. Hands up if you’ve already seen this one.

We love Glasgow and we’ll miss you very much.

Sean + Megan x

This website is full of stuff, interviews, articles, etc, and will become even more active now. You can find our archive of posters and event photographs on Flickr and our trailers and video content on Vimeo and YouTube. Zines, posters and merch are on sale in our shop, matchboxcineclub.bigcartel.com. 

You can also find us on Twitter and Instagram.

And you can keep up-to-date with our mailing list here: eepurl.com/duX1R9

Illustration: Vero Navarro, as commissioned by Matchbox Maw Linda Dougherty (Christmas, 2019)