Matchbox Cine is bringing renowned author, programmer and film-maker Kier-La Janisse to the UK for a series of events to mark the 10th anniversary, expanded edition of her seminal book House of Psychotic Women (FAB Press). Starting at Matchbox Cine’s Weird Weekend festival in Glasgow on 29/10, the tour will stop in Edinburgh, Nottingham, Sheffield, Manchester, Cardiff and London, 31/10 to 05/11.
Matchbox Cine has partnered with the UK’s major genre festivals and exhibitors to co-present each stop, including Dead by Dawn, Mayhem Film Festival, Grimmfest, Abertoir and The Final Girls. At each stop, Kier-La Janisse will introduce a film featured in her book, sign books and take part in a Q&A or In-Conversation hosted by a special guest. Guest hosts include Anna Bogutskaya (The Final Girls), Christina Newland (She Found It at the Movies,) and Alice Lowe (Prevenge).
10 years ago, Kier-La Janisse published HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN, subtitled an “autobiographical topography of female neurosis in horror and exploitation films”. A ground-breaking mix of keen critical analysis and clear-eyed, thoroughly compelling memoir, Janisse’s influential tome inspired a generation of critics, programmers and film-makers. The book has also played no small role in canonising a range of obscure, fringe and forgotten genre titles, many now considered essential.
Titles screened at the various stops will include new restorations of Claude D’Anna’s Tromple l’oeil (1975), Giuseppe Patroni Griffi’s Identikit AKA The Driver’s Seat (1974, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Andy Warhol, based on Muriel Spark’s novel) and Polish vampire curio I Like Bats(1986); rare outings for Don Siegel’s Clint Eastwood starrer The Beguiled (1971), David Cronenberg’s The Brood (1979) and Robert Wise’s Shirley Jackson adaptation The Haunting(1963); Alice Lowe’s Prevenge(with the director in attendance); and Andrzej Żuławski’s remarkable study in eldritch hysteria, Possession(1981).
The entire tour will feature descriptive subtitles/SDH and live captions, to ensure the events are accessible to as many people as possible.
Kier-La Janisse is a film writer, programmer, producer and founder of The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies. She is the author of House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films (2012), A Violent Professional: The Films of Luciano Rossi (2007), and has been an editor on numerous books including Warped & Faded: Weird Wednesday and the Birth of the American Genre Film Archive (2021), Yuletide Terror: Christmas Horror on Film and Television (2017) and Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s (2015). She was a producer on David Gregory’s Tales of the Uncanny (2020) and wrote, directed and produced the award-winning documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror (2021)for Severin Films, where she is a producer and editor of supplemental features. She is currently at work on several books including a monograph about Monte Hellman’s Cockfighter.
The programme is presented by Matchbox Cine as part of In Dreams Are Monsters: A Season of Horror Films, a UK-wide film season supported by the National Lottery and BFI Film Audience Network.indreamsaremonsters.co.uk
Our second annual Keanu Reeves Film Festival has been cancelled until further notice due to COVID-19 – refunds will be issued automatically, full details below
We are very sad to announce that KeanuCon will not take place as planned in 2020. Refunds will take place automatically and weekend pass holders have been informed directly. We plan to relaunch KeanuCon IRL in 2021, dates TBC. If you have any questions after reading all of the details below, get in touch: info@matchboxcineclub.com.
Please enjoy this special memory of our Wyld Stallyns performing live at KeanuCon 2019 and Be Excellent To Each Other until further notice.
We have/had been working hard on alternative plans, including rescheduled dates for later in 2020, which is one reason why updates have been scarce as goalposts continually shifted, but it’s become clear that despite our best efforts and hopes, the festival will be impossible to deliver this year (more detail below).
We are looking at the best ways to bring everyone together to celebrate Keanu online (watch this space for those), around the original dates, and we’re happy to say weekend pass holders will all receive our KeanuCon brochure/zine, with new and exclusive content from Vero Navarro (beloved KeanuCon illustrator), Kitty Curran & Larissa Zageris (For Your Consideration: Keanu Reeves), Will Harris (Mixed Race Superman) and more TBC.
NB The brochure/zine will go out to all weekend pass holders, regardless of automatic refunds. If you would like to waive your refund by way of donation to support Matchbox Cineclub/KeanuCon, thank you very much and please get in touch here: info@matchboxcineclub.com.
In more detail:
Our original dates in June are impossible to deliver due to the current circumstances (our venue, CCA Glasgow, is closed until July at the earliest). We had confirmed rescheduled dates in August, but these are now unviable since CCA will be closed until the end of July at the earliest, with no way of knowing with any certainty that it will reopen fully in August. This makes it difficult for us to plan and promote the event in good faith, or for audience members to make plans to attend.
CCA is smaller in capacity than mainstream cinemas. Even when mainstream cinemas re-open (no earlier than July 4th, and still contingent on a significant reduction in confirmed cases of COVID-19), they will have to adhere to the COVID-19 Secure guidelines, which at present involve distancing between individuals, enhanced hygiene and limiting numbers of people in any one space. This will impact events like ours even more severely again, since we have a lower capacity to begin with. Clearing and cleaning the theatre space between screening will make back-to-back screenings and day-long events next to impossible to deliver practically and safely, for audiences and staff.
Additionally, CCA’s theatre has a capacity of 150, which would potentially be reduced to 50 under these guidelines. We already have sold in excess of 50 weekend passes and we’d expect to sell out the venue in normal circumstances. The costs involved in venue hire, film licences, marketing and everything else involved couldn’t be covered with an audience of only 50 without dramatically impacting ticket prices. 50 attendees would make for an intimate and certainly fun event, but sadly wouldn’t be practical financially (NB at the best of times no other local cinemas could accomodate KeanuCon without charging an impossible fee).
Finally, while we are optimistic that more activity will be possible towards the end of the year (including our rescheduled Remakesploitation Fest), CCA has a full calendar at the best of times and even if we were 100% confident of being able to deliver KeanuCon to the standard and capacity it deserves, there simply aren’t dates available to us for the rest of the year, among events that were already booked and those that have been rescheduled since the advent of COVID-19 (assuming, of course, any of these will be able to take place anyway).
We’re very sad about it, but know that we’ll get through this and celebrate (Keanu) together before too long.
We’ve subsequently taken the decision to postpone the debut of our Arrow Video Night screening series (including opener Why Don’t You Just Die! and the April event, scheduled for 10/04) and the connected CineWriters group meetings (ta-da, that’s a thing/will be a thing!).
NB Remakesploitation Fest 2020 (25-26/04) and KeanuCon 2020 (19-21/06) are still currently going ahead as planned. We will continue to monitor the recommendations of the Scottish Government, the NHS and our partner venue, CCA Glasgow. We hope to relaunch the Arrow Video Night on Saturday 30th May.
We’ll be in touch with ticket holders for Why Don’t You Just Die! directly, and generally appreciate your patience and forbearance with this whole thing, which is obviously still unfolding and that we’re trying to navigate with the greater good in mind.
We have to balance our own decisions as a small, independent operation (with currently no guaranteed funding support) against taking an abundance of caution. While events at CCA (theatre capacity 150, cinema capacity 74) fall below the threshold of 500 for proscribed gatherings, and our first instinct is the show must go on, we need to take responsibility and prioritise public health and safety and truthfully, it doesn’t feel right to be going ahead with events while this whole thing is expanding and still unfolding.
This missive from our friend and respected fellow programmer Herb Shellenberger has informed our decision:
On a related note, we rely on funding support, ticket sales and the revenue we make from subtitling for film events to keep going. With all of those things currently unsure, it’s going to be a tricky time for us. If you’d like to support us in another way, we have t-shirts, posters/prints, books and zines on sale in our online shop: matchboxcineclub.bigcartel.com/category/merch.
If you have any questions regarding upcoming Matchbox Cineclub events please feel free to email us at info@matchboxcineclub.com.
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.
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!
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.
Very different events, but both a pleasure to work on. One is a showcase of the absurd, political and queer musical films of John Greyson, the other a new restoration of a 1988 documentary on Leith and its changing socio-economic landscape.
Sing and Fight! is an event showcasing the absurd, political and queer musical films of John Greyson. Produced by Edinburgh Artists’ Moving Image Festival, in collaboration with HIV Scotland and Pollyanna queer cabaret, it takes place at Glasgow’s The Deep End. Alongside rarely shown musical short films from the 1980s, the event centres on clips from Zero Patience (John Greyson, 1993). Greyson’s film uses the unlikely form of song and dance to tell the story of the unfairly stigmatised, supposed ‘patient zero’ of the AIDS epidemic in North America.
Leithers (Alistair Scott, 1988) documents the people who lived and worked in Leith during the ’80s and examines the changing socio-economic landscape of Leith at that time. The film screening will be introduced by film-maker Alistair Scott, Associate Professor of Film & TV at Edinburgh Napier University. The screening will also be accompanied by a short compilation of archive footage of Leith from the National Library of Scotland’s Moving Image Archive and will be followed by a short panel discussion about Leith’s past, present and future.
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.
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.
Photo by Ingrid Mur
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.
Poster illustration by Vero Navarro
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.
Photo by Ingrid Mur
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.
Toshio Matsumoto’s Atman (1975)
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.
Passes for Weird Weekend, our cult film festival, are £40 (weekend) or £20 (day), and single tickets are priced on a sliding scale, based on your circumstances – you decide what to pay, with reference to our guide. There are three tiers: Free/£2, £4/£6 and £8.
FREE or £2
• I frequently stress about meeting basic* needs and don’t always achieve them.
• I have debt and it sometimes prohibits me from meeting my basic needs.
• I rent lower-end properties or have unstable housing.
• I sometimes can’t afford public or private transport. If I own a car/have access to a car, I am not always able to afford petrol.
• I am unemployed or underemployed.
• I qualify for government and/or voluntary assistance including: food banks and benefits.
• I have no access to savings.
• I have no or very limited expendable** income.
• I rarely buy new items because I am unable to afford them.
• I cannot afford a holiday or have the ability to take time off without financial burden.
£4 or £6
• I may stress about meeting my basic needs but still regularly achieve them.
• I may have some debt but it does not prohibit attainment of basic needs.
• I can afford public transport and often private transport. If I have a car/access to a car I can afford petrol.
• I am employed.
• I have access to health care.
• I might have access to financial savings.
• I have some expendable income.
• I am able to buy some new items and I buy others second hand.
• I can take a holiday annually or every few years without financial burden.
£8
• I am comfortably able to meet all of my basic needs.
• I may have some debt but it does not prohibit attainment of basic needs.
• I own my home or property or I rent a higher end property.
• I can afford public and private transport. If I have a car/access to a car I can afford petrol. • I have regular access to healthcare.
• I have access to financial savings.
• I have an expendable** income.
• I can always buy new items.
• I can afford an annual holiday or take time off.
*BASIC NEEDS include food, housing, clothing and transportation.
**EXPENDABLE INCOME might mean you are able to buy coffee or tea at a shop, go to the cinema or a concert, buy new clothes, books and similar items each month, etc.
Weird Weekend takes place at Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, on Friday 30/08, Saturday 31/08 and Sunday 01/09/2019.
Guest writer Claire Biddles (Sad Girl Cinema) writes on female desire and fandom in German horror Der Fan ahead of our co-screening on July 21st. Beware spoilers!
Désirée Nosbusch in Der Fan
“No letter today. I wrote to R over three weeks ago, and still no answer. Maybe he never got my letter. Maybe some jealous secretary got her hands on it and decided not to give it to him. Because she could tell I love him more than she does. Really love him.”
Although written and directed by a man – prolific German filmmaker Eckhart Schmidt – 1982 cult horror Der Fan is one of the most convincing depictions of female fandom, obsession and desire in cinema. Its descent into cartoon excess represents the heightened fantasy end point of pop star adulation, but it is grounded in uncomfortable truths.
Der Fan follows German teenager Simone, who is disengaged and almost catatonic as she sleepwalks through the drudgery of her home and school life. She barely speaks, but through her narration we discover the reason for her vegetative state: her every waking moment is devoted to intense thoughts of R, a new-wave pop star who she adores above anything else. Her bedroom walls are covered in monochrome images of him, and she listens to his songs via an omnipresent cassette Walkman that separates her from the real world. She no longer pays attention to schoolwork: “What’s the use? I can’t think of anything except R and how much I need him.”
Désirée Nosbusch in Der Fan
The signifiers of fandom are familiar, but the execution is unusual. Rather than a depiction of the (often communal) hysterical excitement of fangirls, Der Fan traces its solitary, destructive flipside. It’s telling that the film’s alternative English title is Trance: Simone’s desire is so all-encompassing that other people fail to register — her teachers, parents, more appropriate romantic suitors. Her unreciprocated obsession is so all-encompassing that it becomes destructive; cancelling out its mundane surroundings.
Simone’s desire has left her with a one-track mind in the centre of a void, wandering the streets in a fugue state. The film’s atmosphere is a dull ache: rain and suburban streets and municipal buildings. R’s music is the kind typically made by inhabitants of these post-industrial landscapes – the soundtrack by Düsseldorf group Rheingold recalls the driving empty urbanity of Joy Division or Bauhaus.
Simone has written R a letter to which he hasn’t responded. Every day she drags her feet to the post office in anticipation of his reply; a voiceover counting the days like a prison sentence. When she tires of waiting, she tracks him down outside a TV studio, and they finally meet. Simone is speechless — she collapses and he rescues her, taking her inside the studio to watch his performance being filmed.
Désirée Nosbusch and Bodo Steiger in Der Fan
The link between the devotion of pop fandom and the manipulative power of political dictatorship is often made in films about charismatic pop stars – most recently in Brady Corbet’s twin films Childhood of a Leader and Vox Lux. The allusion is sometimes clunky: in Der Fan, images of mass-saluting crowds are interspersed with images of R in Simone’s bedroom; in the television performance that Simone watches, R wears a militaristic uniform surrounded by saluting mannequins. The sinister creep of R’s power is more subtly expressed in the similarity between R and Simone when they finally meet, both wearing almost identical outfits of white shirts and dark leather trousers. This could be read as a symbol of R’s control over Simone (and others – his secretary is also seen in a similar outfit) but also of Simone’s desire to possess him so much that she literally starts to become him: an under-reported but fundamental manifestation of fandom.
This desire is made explicit (and then some) in the film’s audacious final act. After their meeting at the television studio, R takes Simone to his friend’s empty apartment where they have sex. After this ultimate act of wish-fulfilment, R disappoints Simone with his aloofness – his desire for a simple one night stand not matching up to her overwhelming need for him. The film’s final twist sees her react with extreme and perverted violence.
While committing this strange violence, Simone is single-minded and determined, her demeanour as trance-like as when she was yearning for R at the start of the film. She’s detached and withdrawn, an empty vessel. If obsession destroys everything around the object of desire, it’s no surprise that it will eventually start to erode the self, too. So much of Simone’s sense of self is constructed around her desire for R, and her desire for R is constructed around a fiction of her own creation. Like so many relationships between fan and fan-object, Simone projects her own base needs onto the empty vessel of a pop star. He can be anything she needs him to be. Even his single-letter name is ripe for projection – a hyper-concentrated version of the iconic mononymous pop star. Nobody knows what the ‘R’ stands for, so it could stand for anything. His post-punk voice is monotonous and anonymous, but Simone fills it with subjective meaning: “He always sings with that same voice, but to me it sounds different every time.” This projection is disrupted once Simone meets the ‘real’ R. When the fan-object disintegrates into nothing, the fan’s whole sense of self is in flux.
Although it presents an extreme manifestation of fandom and obsession, Der Fan’s depiction of desire as a nihilistic force is rooted in truth. It can also be argued as a subtly feminist film: its moral could be that female desire is deadly and destructive, something for men to be afraid of — but also that desire for men is destructive for women too. So many narratives around fandom are rooted in pop stars’ potential to ‘save’ their fans, but Der Fan suggests they can just as easily destroy them — or help them to destroy themselves.
Claire Biddles
Der Fan screens on Sunday 21/07 at Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, followed by a panel discussion on obsession, fandom and thirst, moderated by Claire Biddles.
Tickets are on sale via Matchbox Cineclub’s online shop here, and are priced on a sliding scale, according to your means.
Keep up-to-date with the Facebook event page here.
Want to be a film programmer? Want to work with us? If you have a great idea for a screening, we’re looking for you…
Matchbox Cineclub are looking for collaborators for an upcoming screening or film event! We want to help encourage more pop-up/independent screenings in Glasgow and Film Hub Scotland have supported us to organise co-screenings this year. We have a small budget that will go towards film licences, venue considerations and marketing.
So far this year, we’ve teamed up with Venom Mob Film Club (Shogun Assassin), Backseat Bingo (Under The Cherry Moon) and Sad Girl Cinema (watch this space!). We’re now opening the doors to any and all pitches for a one-off event.
Anyone is welcome to pitch. However, we will prioritise the following*:
Start-up film clubs/series (or otherwise dormant ones)
Young programmers (18-25)
Programmers/groups from BAME backgrounds
Films and/or events that fit our general focus on cult film, not-on-DVD/Blu-Ray/VoD/Streaming/General Release and/or recently screened locally (and yet dead good)
Films and/or events with a compelling extra element
What’s in it for you? Apart from covering costs, you’ll get the benefit of Matchbox’s reach/platform/design etc to hopefully launch your own screening series, as well as any advice, expertise and connections we can pass on.
If you have an idea, we’re looking for a short paragraph of no more than 100 words explaining your pitch, with reference to film title(s), guests or other elements, and why your screening is worthwhile. NB “X is an awesome film” probably won’t get too far.
The screening will likely but not necessarily take place in September, as part of the Scalarama programme. Date and venue TBC/up for discussion.
Any ticket sales will be managed through our online shop. Proceeds from the screenings will be split equally between Matchbox Cineclub and the successful pitchers.
Please don’t pitch us on film festivals à la KeanuCon, Cage-a-rama or Weird Weekend, or any related screenings.
We’re not responsible in the unlikely event that you randomly pitch us on a screening or an event that we already have lined up but haven’t yet announced. We’d never, ever steal an idea, but coincidences do happen.
For the avoidance of doubt, we already have a very long list of films and events we’d like to programme.
If you have an idea that’s just too good to share, please feel free to get in touch separately for advice on how to set up your own screening.
We will do our best to respond and give feedback (if requested) on all pitches, but we can’t guarantee it.
If you’re an established organisation looking to work with us, best just email us separately – we’re always open to collaboration.
*Because we want to, not because it’s a condition of the funding. NB complaining about this is a useful way to disqualify yourself and your pitch 🙂
Ever wanted to screen a film? Our straightforward guide will tell you what licences you need to screen films in Scotland, how to get them and how to get started
When we started screening films we knew there was stuff we didn’t know, or assumed was probably wrong – whether through wilful ignorance or plausible deniability, we definitely didn’t do things correctly straight out the gate. This is true of a lot of film events, and usually in good faith. Briefly, we figured out what we needed to know and that one problem is that there aren’t necessarily straightforward/simple answers to some basic questions. Licensing for film screenings can be like traversing shifting sands from one event to the next.
However, there are basics and we learnt them and this, here, is the skeleton of a presentation we gave in March 2019 as part of Scalarama Glasgow’s Programming and Licensing event at Glasgow Short Film Festival. You can download it as a two-page PDF here.
Why confirm licences?
Legally, you have to (¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
Threat of fines (and your venue can be classed as a “contributory infringer”)
The greater good (exhibitors, film makers, distributors and everyone in between depend on each other to sustain the film industry)
Access to funding and other support to help keep doing what you’re doing
These are the licences venues need to screen films anywhere in Scotland:
Depending whether or not you want to plan your screening (e.g. if you want to advertise your screening anywhere outside your venue or online), you will also need one of two kinds of licence:
Single Title Screening Licence (STSL, for planned screenings, free or not)
Public Video Screening Licence (PVSL, an umbrella licence for unplanned and/or “ambient”, free screenings and/or members-only orgs)
NB Filmbank’s Licence Wizard is a handy way to figure out which you need
You can confirm most licences from ‘gateway’ distribution companies who manage large libraries on behalf of major studios, for example:
Park Circus (mostly but not exclusively theatrical, i.e. in cinemas)
Filmbank (non-theatrical, i.e. anywhere not a cinema)
A: Depending on the context and source, it can be anywhere from £60 + VAT to several hundred pounds. Some distributors demand a percentage (often 35%) of final box take versus a minimum guarantee (MG), meaning you pay whatever is more.
Q: Can I haggle/negotiate?
A: You can try. Haggling is more commonplace in Europe and North America than in the UK. And some distributors, e.g. Filmbank, operate an online portal that doesn’t allow for it.
Q: Who will know if I don’t get a licence?
A: Distributors, especially the bigger ones, do keep an eye on screening activity and if they’re made aware of unlicenced screenings of their films, they will investigate. Most commonly, they’ll simply chase you to book it in. Other local exhibitors, including cinemas, will likely notice screenings that seem to be unlicenced too => side-eye and/or bad blood.
Q: Do I need a licence if my screening is free or for charity?
A: Yes. Although on rare occasions you may be granted a licence for free, you still have to confirm permission to screen with the licence holder.
Q: Do I need a licence if the director/star is coming?
A: Most likely. Unless the director is also the licence holder and/or the film doesn’t have distribution, they probably won’t manage the screening rights for their own film.
Q: If I own the DVD, can I screen it?
A: Not without a licence. However, the licence fee most likely will not cover screening materials (i.e. DVD, Blu Ray), which you usually must provide yourself.
Q: If someone released the DVD/Blu Ray, can they grant a screening licence?
A: Sometimes, but not always. The rights to distribute a film for home entertainment and the rights to distribute a film theatrically or non-theatrically are not essentially the same.
Q: What do I do if I’ve exhausted every avenue and explored all possibilities of finding a licence holder?
A: In the very unlikely chance you have (see Sophie Brown’s Point Break saga), there is the option to self-indemnify, meaning you make a record of your attempts to source the licence, reserve the box office take and prepare for the licence holder to eventually come forward. No-one recommends you do this.
Q: Which films are in the public domain?
A: There isn’t a definitive answer or resource for this. Websites that claim to be definitive are not and in any case are often based in the US, which is a different distribution territory that also has different copyright laws. On top of this, the legal status of films often changes over time. All you can do is research.
Scalarama Glasgow is running monthly meetings in the lead-up to September’s season of DIY film programming. They’re aimed at helping exhibitors brand-new and experienced alike to put on films, and each month has two invited experts on different aspects of film exhibition. They’re free and open to all, full details here.
If you have any more questions or could use some advice, get in touch with us here:info@matchboxcineclub.com
