Rosa von Praunheim – Matchbox Cine

In 2019, we produced three festivals (one of which gained international viral fame), screened 43 feature-length films and 31 short films, hosted 13 guests, 4 drag performers, 2 live bands, co-programmed 14 collaborative screenings, embraced the sliding scale ticketing system, started open-captioning all our screenings, launched a subtitling arm providing HOH subtitles for several festivals and other exhibitors and co-ordinated a month-long season of films across Glasgow and Scotland. Through it all, we had the best audiences and an amazing support network of colleagues, collaborators and peers. Particularly, the support and enthusiasm from our friends at Film Hub Scotland set us up to deliver what is beyond a doubt our busiest programme yet. Here’s our ridiculous year in pictures, month-by-month.

Cage-a-rama 2: Cage Uncaged | We started the year with our second annual Nicolas Cage film festival, opening with Mandy and a Q&A with Cheddar Goblin creators Casper Kelly and Shane Morton. Mom & Dad director Brian Taylor joined us via Skype on Saturday evening and we closed the weekend with the UK premiere of the truly special Between Worlds, a still-unsung and underrated entry in the Cage canon. Despite being described in some quarters as “the new The Room“, it was thoroughly enjoyable and a good time was had by all.

*Phones aloft at Auld Lang Vine #RIPVine (Photo by Ingrid Mur)*

Auld Lang Vine #RIPVine | In mourning of everyone’s favourite six-second video platform, we hosted a fitting funeral, including drag homage by Puke, live music by Joyce Delaney and 500+ Vines curated by Pilot Light TV Festival. This was an event of firsts, including our first use of the sliding scale ticket price and our first ever spontaneous modern-day lighter waving. Part of the #BFIComedy season.

Director Jaqueline Wright introduces Two Weirds Is Too Weird (Photo by Ingrid Mur)

Two Weirds Is Too Weird @GSFF19 | In March, we joined forces with Glasgow Short Film Festival to curate a night of short films made by Alice Lowe & Jacqueline Wright under the Jackal Films banner, featuring feline erotica, courtly necrophilia and bird women. Jacqueline, who’s now based in the US, very kindly recorded us a special introduction for the event. This was also our first collaboration with fantastic photographer Ingrid Mur, who documented our events for the rest of 2019.

Shogun Assassin with Venom Mob Film Club | This was Venom Mob Film Club’s first screening, and the first of our 2019 co-screenings supported by Film Hub Scotland. Johnny and Chuck programmed one of our favourites and served it up with a special menu of vegan ramen. Venom Mob have since done a bunch more screenings themselves, and they’ve all been great.

KeanuCon | Megan: Viral fame unexpectantly struck us this year as the internet caught wind of the world’s first Keanu Reeves film festival (less than a week before the already sold-out festival), yet we remain humble.

Sean: (Broke).

Megan: The festival was wyld regardless of the coverage, we had contributions from Alex Winter, Bill & Ted writer Ed Solomon, Man of Tai Chi star Tiger Chen, authors Kitty Curran & Karissa Zageris and My Own Private Idaho aficianado Claire Biddles. The weekened climaxed with a live performance from Wyld Stallyns, a Glasgow supergroup who absolutely nailed it. And, of course, we had lots of Keanu films, 11 in total, including his first appearance on film, in a National Film Board of Canada short. The weekend was full of Keanu love and great energy from the audience, we can’t wait to do it again in 2020!

Backseat Bingo’s Casci Ritchie (Photo by Ingrid Mur)

Under the Cherry Moon with Backseat Bingo | Our next team-up of the year was with the brilliant Backseat Bingo, returning from a long absence. It was only fitting that programmer Casci Ritchie, who is also an academic expert on His Royal Badness, present this lesser known Prince classic on his birthday. Casci introduced the film with an illustrated talk on Prince’s fashion, from erotic sportswear to the classic trench coat.

Cage-a-rama 3D @ EIFF | What could be better than Cage? Cage in 3D! Senior programmer Niall Grieg Fulton invited us to collaborate on this special event at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival. After Cage-a-rama 2 (and our 2018 pop-up, The World’s Greatest 3D Film Club at Nice N Sleazy), Cage-a-rama 3D was the logical next step. EIFF’s team sourced beautiful 3D prints and footed the bill for an incredible top-of-the-range 3D system (the glasses need re-charged after every screening). Drive Angry and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance have never looked better – and we got to commission another incredible illustration from Vero Navarro!

Der Fan with Sad Girl Cinema | As part of BFI’s Film Feels: Obsession season, we co-programmed ’80s thirsty cult slasher Der Fan, along with a topical panel on obsession, thirst and fandom, featuring Bethany Rose Lamont (Sad Girl Cinema), Liz Murphy (artist), Jamie Dunn (The Skinny) and chaired by Claire Biddles (Sad Girl Cinema).

#SubtitledCinema | This was the year we committed to switching on the subtitles for every screening we do. We believe in accessibility and inclusion and though there’s lots of things we can’t do because we don’t have the budget or the time (there’s still just the two of us running Matchox), we realised if we could do it, we should. The other side of the coin is that since we aim to screen films that you can’t see elsewhere and often it’s the first, the first in a very long time, or somehow the only time you’ll be able to see these films, particularly on the big screen, we want to make sure as many people can see them as possible. Underpinning all that is the fact that we’re also professional subtitlers, with over a decade experience in subtitling for D/deaf audiences, so this year we put two and two together and started a subtitling arm to Matchbox. Since we started, alongside our own programming, we’ve produced subtitle files for festivals (GSFF, GFF, Take One Action, Document), film industry events (Film Hub Scotland’s EIFF Industry Days and This Way Up), new films (Super November, Her Century, Women Make Film) and creators (Ctrl Shift Face’s ongoing series of deepfake clips).

Frans Gender performing to Kenny Loggins’ Footloose. (Photo by Ingrid Mur)

Sing-along SAW with Pity Party Film Club | In 2018, we launched the Scalarama Scotland programme with Polyester in Odorama, a scratch ‘n’ sniff event that also featured live drag performers and a very special ring girl in Puke, who, in lieu of on-screen prompts, let everyone know when to rub ‘n’ snort the special Odorama cards. We wanted to top it this year, so we teamed up with our pals Pity Party Film Club to come up with Sing-along SAW – a screening of the classic modern horror, interpolated with live drag acts inspired by key scenes. Highlights included Billy circling the audience on a People Make Glasgow bike and Frans Gender’s out-on-a-limb rendition of Kenny Loggins’ Footloose.

Director Tom Schiller introduces Nothing Lasts Forever, complete with player piano and lunartini.

Nothing Lasts Forever on 35mm | Tom Schiller’s Nothing Lasts Forever has been on our list since we started showing films. Never released on VHS, DVD, VOD or streaming, since its scarce first screenings, it’s only been seen via TV broadcast once in a blue moon (not in the UK since Alex Cox introduced it on Moviedrome in 1994). When we realised Park Circus could authorise a 35mm screening, we knew we had to make it happen, and it was the perfect opening film for Weird Weekend. And though it was challenging (the only way to see the theatrical cut, and therefore prepare, is with the 35mm print), we even figured out how to screen it with subtitles.

Matchbox Maw Linda Dougherty and programmer Sean Welsh (Photo by Ingrid Mur)

Weird Weekend | One of our proudest moments this year, our second annual cult film festival was the first festival we’ve done with the sliding scale ticketing scheme, the first fully subtitled and we also had a 50/50 F-rated programme, meaning half the films were directed by women. Besides all of that, Weird Weekend represents our core programming: outcasts, orphans and outliers – the oddball and often lost classics that deserve to be better seen. Programming, producing, promoting and delivering it this year was thrilling and challenging and exhausting and rewarding. Highlights for us were hosting deepfake auteur Ctrl Shift Face (who came to take part in our Weird World of Deepfakes panel, debuted a brand-new clip and provided his back catalogue for a feature-length retrospective); screening Věra Chytilová’s rarely-seen Vlci Bouda; bringing the mighty Vibrations to a Glasgow audience; and, of course, hosting a Skype Q&A with the one and only Joe Dante, who also allowed us to screen the workprint of The ‘Burbs, complete with alternative ending, extended and missing scenes and even more Morricone needle drops. Subtitling/captioning most of the programme from scratch was another proud moment, if exhausting, and we can’t wait to do it all bigger and better again in 2020.

Scalarama 2019 | This year, we took a new approach to coordinating the monthly Scalarama meetings leading up to the full DIY season in September. We wanted to make the meetings more practically useful for people looking to start screening films, as well as for people with a little more experience. Every month from March, we invited two guest speakers to present on different aspects of putting on films, and then make an opportunity for attendees to ask questions and share their own perspectives. When our programme was launched in August, we had our busiest ever programme in Glasgow, as well as more and more activity in Edinburgh, the Highlands and Islands and all across Scotland.

Kaleidoscopic Realms | Megan: This was probably my favourite screening of the year, if I’m allowed to say that? Our programme was a mix of Toshio Matsumoto and Nobuhiro Aihara shorts sourced from the Post War Japan Moving Image Archive and two shorts by Naoto Yamakawa, supplied us to by the director. This was a mini-time capsule of experimental shorts of the ’70s & ’80s, and just the beginning of our experimental Japanese programming, which you’ll see more of in 2020.

Lydia Honeybone talks to Freddy McConnell after Seahorse (Photo by Ingrid Mur)

Seahorse with Freddy McConnell | Our first co-screening with Queer Classics brought Jeanie Finlay’s then brand-new documentary Seahorse to Glasgow. Seahorse intimately explores Freddy McConnell’s pregnancy journey as a trans man. Freddy even came along to chat with the audience about his experiences, and got confused when asked about his ‘wean’!

Gregg Araki introduces our screening, from an LA burger joint

Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse Trilogy with Diet Soda Cineclub | For the first time ever, we didn’t attend our own event, a co-screening triple bill of Totally Fucked Up, The Doom Generation and Nowhere. We had been invited to curate a panel on #SubtitledCinema at one of Independent Cinema Office’s regular Screening Days events, so while we prepared well (including producing all-new subtitles for all three films), we had to be at Nottingham’s Broadway Cinema when the event started in Glasgow. We left delivery of the event in the very capable hands of our co-programmer, Sarah Nisbet of Diet Soda Cineclub. Gregg Araki’s specially recorded introduction (filmed during a burger joint reunion with the cast of Kaboom) arrived practically at the last second, but it was worth the wait.

Best of Final Girls Berlin | Ain’t no horror like women-made horror, and Final Girls Berlin have the best of it. We brought the frights, anxiety and terror of FGBFF right to Glasgow with a showcase of the best short horror films from their festival, made by women from around the world. And if you liked this team-up, keep an eye out for their festival programme announcement in January 2020 😉

Sgàire Wood’s introduction to City of Lost Souls (Photo by Ingrid Mur)

City of Lost Souls with Sgàire Wood | As part of BFI Musicals season, we brought a bit more of Berlin to Glasgow via ’80s trans punk musical City of Lost Souls. As if this film didn’t have it all already we also comissioned Sgàire Wood to produce a new performance to introduce the screening. We love this film, which challenges expected representation of queer communites, and is just a great odd-ball film all round.

Dial Code: Santa Claus & Secret Santa Party with Backseat Bingo | Our 43rd film of 2019, and our last, is another team up with Backseat Bingo. We wanted to celebrate Christmas with our audiences and our film exhibiton pals so what better than an ’80s action horror featuring a 9-year-old with a mullet and a super creepy Santa? Plus Secret Santa in aid of Refuweegee, and an additional surprise festive screening to finish!

Keep up to date with our 2020 events by signing up to our mailing list, here, or find our events on Facebook here.

Cage-a-rama 2020 takes place 3rd, 4th and 4th January 2020 at the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow. Buy tickets here.

Growing up in the 1990s, some of my favourite films featured queer characters and, coming out as a teenager, they became my idols. I learnt about queer culture from the drag queens played by Guy Pearce, Hugo Weaving and Terence Stamp in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), Robin Williams in The Bird Cage (1996), and Ewan McGregor, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Christian Bale in Velvet Goldmine (1998). But, surprisingly, these roles were all played by straight actors – not a single one of them openly identifies as queer.

I began this blog post thinking I’d write a critical text on issues raised by straight actors playing queer roles and, while I still believe there is a necessary conversation to be held about appropriation, and the need for affirmative action within casting, on re-watching City of Lost Souls (Stadt Der Verlorenen Seelen, Rosa von Praunheim, 1983), and looking back at queer/drag on-screen representation, another question arose: how have we arrived at this moment in cinematic history, where we ‘homonormatise’ our on-screen queers?

While it’s commendable that queer characters have moved from supporting roles to centre stage, from the gay sidekick BFF (see Rupert Everett in My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997)), to more fully realised characters (such as Simon in Love, Simon (2018)), these more prominent roles seem to have been made more palatable for a wider audience, a kind of glossing-over. It seems that in the process of moving centre stage, queer on-screen representation has had to be cleaned up and diluted for a wider audience.

Viewing City of Lost Souls, we soon discover there is no attempt to gloss-over or dilute queer experience. This is apparent in the choice of characters themselves, including Angie Stardust, a black trans lesbian woman and Tara O’Hara, a trans sex worker. Then there is Lila, played by Jayne Country, a trans actress/punk musician of the era. Arguably the campest and most fabulous character in the film – as well as the most confusing – I only realised she was playing a cis woman when the character becomes pregnant! City of Lost Souls intentionally fucks with you. It’s challenging, camp, and slapstick.

Between the cabaret numbers and outlandish punk performances, there are few moments that could be described as ‘tender’, but there is one that stands out. In this scene Angie Stardust and Tara O’Hara are getting ready for a night out, reminiscent of the Werk Room on RuPaul’s Drag Race, or the dressing rooms of Paris is Burning (1990), but during this moment, they discuss their gender identities and differing attitudes to gender across their respective generations.

Angie and Tara have a complex exchange about their own gender expressions. Angie is seeking gender-realignment surgery, and is adamant that, in the narrator’s words, she “won’t become an old man”. Tara, of a younger generation, self-identifies as “transvestite”, and “third sex”, not feeling the need for surgery. Identifying as a woman with the anatomy she was born with, Tara accuses Angie of being old-school in her mindset.

*City of Lost Souls (Rosa von Praunheim, 1983)*

Had she not been murdered in a homophobic attack in 1983, how would Tara O’Hara feel about her gender expression? Would she have found kinship in the ballrooms of 1990s New York, in Paris is Burning, and the legendary mother Pepper LaBejia of the House of LaBejia? Schooling the children, she famously said “having the vagina, that doesn’t mean that you’re gonna have a fabulous life”.

Angie is a fierce character throughout, bursting onto the screen in the opening song, telling the staff of the Hamburger Queen to stop messing around and get back to work. In her scene with Tara, this anger is channelled into educating her young prodigy on the struggles the trans community faced, ultimately allowing her to be free in her gender expression. This sensitive and nuanced exchange between these two very different women, is a rare gem of political debate in an otherwise brash, bombastic queer musical!

The reason this otherwise inconsequential scene stands out for me, is a shocking indication of how little progress we, as queer people, have made when it comes to the wider recognition of gender diversity. I’m left questioning how queer culture has failed to make the gains we looked set to achieve in 1994, when we celebrated Terence Stamp’s portrait of Bernadette, a trans woman who performed ‘womanhood’ in her job as a drag queen in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

It is problematic to hold up RuPaul’s Drag Race as the benchmark by which we judge all representations of queerness on-screen, but with viewer numbers through the roof, 13 Emmys and a growing international fanbase, Mama Ru has reached audiences previously unimaginable to drag queens. For many people RuPaul’s Drag Race is queer culture. But, with their questionable stance on trans inclusivity and homogenised beauty standards, is Drag Race partly responsible for the ‘homonormativity’ we find across queer popular culture today? How have we strayed so far from the ’80s/’90s queer representation that was so gender fluid and wholly inclusive?

This is what makes revisiting City of Lost Souls so exciting and utterly pertinent. It is a chance to enter into an absurd world of queer kinship, where a trans woman plays the role of a woman assigned female at birth, a drag queen self identifies as “the third sex” and her best friend is a black, trans, lesbian who reigns over their household as a fierce matriarch. The rules of gender are broken and rebuilt in our viewing of this bizarre, queer extravaganza, about love, rejection, violence and self-expression.

City of Lost Souls never achieved the box-office success of Priscilla, or even the cult status of Paris is Burning, but it is an incredible reflection of the Berlin underground in the 1980s. Indeed, perhaps its relative obscurity allowed it to be so subversive.

Ultimately, I hope Hollywood casting directors will realise that they need to do better and start casting queer people in queer roles (like the brilliantly-cast Tangerine (2015)). Until then, maybe we will need to keep looking to the margins to find our contemporary queer idols.

Lydia Honeybone

Matchbox Cineclub and Queer Classics present City Of Lost Souls at Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow on Monday 18th November, as part of BFI Musicals! The Greatest Show on Screen, a UK-wide film season supported by National Lottery, BFI Film Audience Network and ICO. bfimusicals.co.uk

Tickets are priced on a sliding scale £0-8, and are available exclusively here.

Tag: Rosa von Praunheim

KeanuCon, Captions and Co-screenings

Gender expression in Rosa von Praunheim’s cult musical City of Lost Souls