Original subtitles

Good evening, everybody.

No? Welcome

to the 67th BFI

London Film Festival.

My name is Jason Wood and I'm the director of public programme and

here. It's very bad form to have a favourite film in a festival that you're

responsible for.

But I'm going to be honest, this is the UK premiere of Scala.

Three exclamation marks, very, very long subtitle.

And it does have a real personal connection to me. When I was growing up

80s and 90s, the Scala for me was a place of refuge, actually, like many of

people here. A show of hands if you're a Scala regular.

Yeah. Okay, so you're a converted crowd.

It was a place where I kind of went to find out about myself, but it's also a

place where I went to find out about world cinema.

And if I've had any kind of career in the film industry, the most important

thing I learned at the Scala was that all culture has currency.

Something that might have no value to one person might have a huge amount of

value to somebody else.

So don't be a snob.

And that's something that we try to apply here with the programme.

The Scala documentary is co -directed by Jane Giles and Ali Catterall.

And we're very personally invested in it at the BFI.

Mia Bayes and her team helped fund it, and it's going to be released by BFI

Distribution on January 5th, and then it's going to be on BFI Player on

22nd, and it's going to tour cinemas across the UK.

I'd like to... We have a very small, very hard -working distribution team,

they never get any thanks or acknowledgement.

So let's give them a round of applause for all the hard work that they do.

There is another screening tomorrow, which is going to have a Q &A

It is completely sold out.

And there's a number of exciting things happening. When we release the film on

January 5th, there's also going to be a season, a gala season, called Rock and

Roll Cinema, which Jane and I have worked on.

I can't tell you what's in it because we haven't announced it, but it's going to

be Manor from Heaven for Perverts and Deviants.

So everybody, everybody welcome.

Final thing to inform you is that after the film tonight, we have a DJ set in

the bar, which is going to invoke the spirit of the Scala. So piss and shit

over the floor, probably.

And poppers will be on sale.

So do join us in the bar to have some fun.

You're going to have a really great time.

There's so much to recommend in this film. Score from Barry Adamson.

It's just a riot. We love it so much and we're so pre -old.

I've invented a new word.

Proud to be releasing the film next year on January 5th.

Somewhere in the audience, there is a Jane Giles.

So, Jane Giles, would you like to stand up and join me?

Thanks everyone for coming. It's great to see you. This is first and foremost a

film about audience.

So it's you, the audience, I think. That's where we all started. That's

filmmaking begins and ends, is with audience.

So first of all, I'd like to say thank you to Chrissie Matheson and her team at

the LFF, particularly the projectionists, the front of house

team who put it together.

We're honoured to be having the UK premiere of the film here at the LFF.

I'd like to say thank you to Jason and to Stuart Brown, to Julie Pearce, to

Jill Redding, to Phil Roberts and to Douglas Weir in technical delivery and

rest of their teams who are releasing the film, as Jason says, in January.

I'd like to thank the Dock Society.

Anyone here from the Dock Society?

Oh, yes.

There's one.

Fabulous. And their colleagues at the BFI. I'd also like to thank the 400

people who contributed to the Kickstarter campaign.

It was a really valuable part of the funding.

And is there anyone here who contributed to the Kickstarter?

Fantastic. I think there might be a few more than that. Particularly thanks to

David Babsky, Robert Randolph and Paula Jalfon, who are our fantastic executive

producers.

I first of all should have warned you that this introduction is going to

a little bit of audience participation.

so we'll get ready for that so maybe hold any applause right for the end

we need to do something spectacular as a finale to this intro which is being

filmed for the Blu -ray additionality so filmmaking is a collaborative

And to help you meet some of our collaborators, I'd like to

introduce my most valued colleague, Ali Catterall, my co -director.

So, Ali, can you introduce us to the producers, please? Yeah, one

sec.

It's out of focus.

So, yeah, it took us five years to make this film.

But we finally got it over the line thanks to our producers, Alan Mark and

Reed of Chanlex. Where are you?

Thank you, guys.

And also the incredible Andy Stark. Where have you gone?

Who also edited the film alongside the extremely patient Edward Mills. Where

you?

Thank you so much.

Andy and Ed also worked on the sound editing, and we're really thrilled that

sound team was led by Martin Pavey, the really great sound designer, and Nicky

Ruck, who, between them, made a most fantastic soundtrack.

We work with Chris Watson, the Cabaret Voltaire founding member and great sound

engineer for Attenborough's Life on Earth. And he put contact mics all

the building and recorded the sound of the Scala.

And that's embedded into the soundtrack for the film. So those of you familiar

with the rumble will hear that.

Can I just add my personal thanks to the current team of the Scala in King's

Cross, to Ryan Bissett, Jane Cotter, and all their colleagues. Thank you for

giving us access to your beautiful building.

You made it look much nicer than we did when we were there as a cinema.

And are you here, Jane, Ryan?

Hello, there at the back. Hi.

So among our 50 interviewees, we're delighted to have several of them here

today. Please come to the stage, starting with the incredible Barry

also composed our score.

Come on, all the rest of you, everyone who's in the film, we want you on stage

now.

Okay, I'm going to introduce you to Ali Cayley, projectionist, Tricia McGrath,

graphic, Caroline Katz, Mike Leatham, 2D design, David McGillivray,

Mark Moore, Graham Humphries, Resurrection Joe, also known as Lee

Barry Adamson, Ali, you know, Cathy Unsworth, Jane Pilling, Peter

Helen DeWitt, Paul Putner, and, of course, Rory Perkins from The Mix.

So all of our cast here were people who were in the audience at the Scala, and

you'll see in the film them talking in interview about what it was like and

it felt like.

to ask anybody who ever worked at Scala Cinema to stand up.

And stay standing, please. Stay standing.

Anybody else who ever worked at 2D Design, please stand up.

Thank you. Stay standing, please.

And please stand up anybody who ever went to the Scala cinema.

Stay standing. And please stand up if you've worked on our film in any shape

or form.

Stay standing, everyone.

And all contributed to the Kickstarter, please stand up.

And finally, if there's anybody else in the room not standing, please can you

stand up now?

Thank you. We just got our standing ovation before the film started.

So just sorry, the last thing that I do need to say is that tomorrow at 4pm, the

London Film Festival is announcing the Audience Awards.

Sorry, you can sit down now.

and it's an online thing you need to get on the LFF website and vote for us if

you like the film or vote for us if you don't like the film because I think it

would just be quite funny if a film about audience won the audience award so

don't think we're winners in any other sense but let's go for it and enjoy the

film