Cage-a-rama 2020 Guests + UK Tour

Black an white image: Nicolas Cage and stand-in Marco Kyris stand together, looking down - Cage holds tissue paper, Marco an empty tin can
Nicolas Cage and Marco Kyris on set

Matchbox Cineclub are pleased to announce Marco Kyris, Nicolas Cage’s official stand-in for over ten years, will attend our third annual Cage-a-rama film festival at Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts on 3rd, 4th & 5th January 2020 and afterwards embark on a UK-wide Cage-a-rama: Uncaged tour.

Marco, who worked with Cage on almost 20 films between 1994-2005, will join Lindsay Gibb, Toronto-based author of National Treasure: Nicolas Cage and world-leading Nicolas Cage expert, for an in-conversation event and a screening of Uncaged: A Stand-in Story at CCA Glasgow on Saturday 4th January. Kyris will also introduce several of Cage-a-rama 2020’s films across the festival weekend: Leaving Las Vegas (for which Cage won an Academy Award® for Best Actor), the first of the fan-favourite National Treasure films, and Martin Scorsese’s urban horror Bringing Out the Dead, the latter of which he will introduce alongside journalist Josh Slater-Williams (Sight & Sound, Little White Lies).

Kyris has also guest-programmed a special opening night screening of one of his favourite collaborations with Cage, Brian De Palma’s Snake Eyes, followed by a Q&A. Throughout the festival, Marco will be open to any questions about his “Cage Wage” years, and share genuine call-sheets and other Cage memorabilia from his archive – and might be persuaded to part with them if audience members pose good enough questions. Cage-a-rama’s opening night is sponsored by Drygate.

Directors Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas) and Stephen Campanelli (Grand Isle) will introduce their films via specially recorded videos. Joining them are Nicolas Cage aficionados from across the globe, including Timon Singh of Bristol Bad Film Club, Torïo Garcia of the Spanish NicCagepedia, and Mike Manzi & Joey Lewandowski, the New Jersey-based hosts of the much-loved #CageClub: The Nicolas Cage Podcast.

Three images featuring Marco Kyris standing in for Nicolas Cage on film sets - The Rock, Face/Off and Con Air. (https://www.mkyris.com/)
Marco Kyris, on the sets of The Rock, Face/Off and Con Air

The subsequent Cage-a-rama 2020 UK Tour will feature a 35mm screening of Con Air at the Genesis Cinema in London on Thursday 9th January, and a 20th-anniversary screening of Gone in 60 Seconds in collaboration with Bristol Bad Film Club at Bristol Improv Theatre on Saturday 11th January. Both screenings will be accompanied by Marco Kyris’s short film, Uncaged: A Stand-In Story, and a post-screening Q&A.

Cage-a-rama 2020 highlights Cage’s relationship with directors: from big guns to young guns, from huge budgets to low ones, from his career’s early days to now. The festival features 10 films over three days, closing with the UK premiere of brand-new Nicolas Cage film Primal (2019), to be released by Lionsgate in February 2020. Sunday 5th January also sees the UK premiere of Grand Isle, which pairs Cage with Kelsey Grammer, set to be released by 101 Films. The rest of the programme features Cage classics from some of his earliest roles, in Francis Ford Coppola’s Peggy Sue Got Married and Top Gun “homage” Fire Birds, to blockbuster sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets and a midnight screening of Zandalee, his erotic thriller co-starring Judge Reinhold.


Cage-a-rama 2020 Weekend and Day Passes and individual tickets are on sale via Matchbox Cineclub’s online shop. Tickets for Con Air in London are available via Genesis Cinema’s website (genesiscinema.co.uk) and tickets for Gone in 60 Seconds can be purchased via Bristol Improv Theatre (improvtheatre.co.uk).

For the first time, the entire Glasgow Cage-a-rama programme will be open-captioned for D/deaf audiences, and tickets for each film are priced on a sliding scale, £0-8, with reference to our three-tiered guide, so audience members decide what to pay.

Keep up-to-date via the Cage-a-rama 2020 Facebook event

Poster for Cage-a-rama 2020, feauring an illustration of Nicolas Cage climbing Glasgow Cathedral a la King Kong (https://veronavarro.com/)
Illustration by Vero Navarro