Original subtitles

I was with a typical middle -class suburban family in Reading.

Very normal childhood.

I was 16.

It was my first time in London by myself as well. So that was the whole thing.

And I think when you're that age, I think everything is encoded

much more radically into your...

your bloodstream.

You know, had I had those experiences now, I would have fallen asleep.

I did fall asleep then as well. But even then when I fell asleep, things just

enter you in a permanent way.

Whereas now, things just kind of somehow ricochet off you.

Your skin is just open to things.

So I was very lucky that I was that age. I was 16.

And also, it wasn't just the age.

different time when there was no internet where which made everything

mysterious you couldn't google someone you couldn't get a snippet on youtube um

but i remember i remember when i saw it a week later they announced it was on

television on itv i think and i was like oh god why i've heard funny i waited

but then i realized no actually no it was again it was i'm glad i went because

it was about the cinema as much as it was about the film

A Razorhead was very empty.

I remember this strange -looking guy with his girlfriend.

He looked like the kind of person who'd watch a Razorhead.

I looked very straight.

I'm trying to think. I remember watching Night of the Hunter, and I think it was

only an old guy who was a tramp.

who knew all the lines from the film, and he kept quoting them.

He had cat food in his plastic bag, he kept rusting the bag, he was feeding one

of the cats.

And I didn't mind it in a way, it was all part of the whole thing.

I think the most people I remember was Dust Devil, when that opened here.

And there was this triple bill of Minodestra, Matress, and...

Venus and furs, but like a black and white version with a guy working in a

shop, which I've never heard of since.

Quite a few people there.

But yeah, there was always a sense that you wanted to meet people and you knew

that they shared the same sensibility and they were like -minded.

Yeah, I guess it was just too...

I didn't really have it in me to start a conversation, even though I wanted to.

You were hoping by sitting in the corner that someone would come up to you. It

didn't really work that way.

It was only years later that you'd meet people who had been to Pascala or

pretended to have been to Pascala.

But no, it was a very solitary experience.

I think I went once with someone from this filmmaking club I used to go to,

seeing Bad Timing and Last Tango in Paris.

But otherwise, you know, on my own, which I kind of like in a way. It was

very insular activity.

So I was born in a kind of new town just outside Glasgow called East Kilbride

and there was one big cinema you know obviously saw the latest blockbusters

saturday morning pictures but as I got a bit older you know I started to

discover these films on that was even before channel 4 existed so there were

three channels bbc1 bbc2 and itv and late nights on bbc2 sometimes

they would show

foreign films or more obscure films.

My mum, bless her, used to let me stay up so late when I was a kid. I saw some

films that literally haunted me for months.

So I saw some fascinating films and some... I didn't really understand them

because I was literally 12, but I just was so drawn to them, I couldn't

articulate it.

And then I started to go down to the library, our local library, and...

look at film books and look for more of these films and I would photocopy stills

from them and put them on bedroom wall I mean I've got photographs of my bedroom

and it's got like stills from daisies you know the Vera Tukalova film which I

never saw for 10 years after so from seeing those films by

accident because there's nothing else on you know the reason family I'd sit down

with my mum and watch these incredibly strange films.

I always knew it was a good film when she'd say, I cannae make head nor tail

this. I always knew it was only a winner.

So I'd go down to the local library and you'd put five peas in a machine and

you'd photocopy pictures from books.

At that time in Glasgow, there was the Glasgow Film Theatre.

So when I got older, say 16, 17,

it could go and it was amazing. It'd been a...

The cinema that was housed in had been a cinema in the 50s that showed foreign

films. My parents, from talking to them, they would go and see French movies,

just because everyone, there was no TV at the time, and everyone was just going

to movies four or five times a week. And they would go and see French films,

like the way these are seen, like they would go and see the latest.

Hollywood film so that was kind of interesting but culturally they weren't

really interested in that in a broad sense so there was no one I could speak

about this it was like a secret passion and then when I joined the Jesus and

Mary team I discovered that Jim and William who were you know who I formed a

band with were exactly the same as me you know we'd watch these films and try

and find out as much as we could about them and look for other films that we'd

seen mysterious skills of and would dream about seeing.

Now it's only really when I came to London and to the Scala really were all

those films that we really became obsessed with. From one still and a few

sentences in a book we got to see them here.

So it was like a dream come true really.

I think I started coming to the Scarlet even as a teenager.

But by the time I was, I think, 19, I was living in the Caledonian Road in a

licensed squat, and this was our local.

And so I came to the Scarlet all the time.

I guess I had quite a lucky break. I left school when I was about 15.

I was supposed to be 16, but somehow before.

Before anyone noticed, let's say.

And I had spent a period working for a photographer called Eve Arnold.

And I always took photographs. I took photographs from when I was 10 years

actually.

But she said, look, I'm looking at your work and what you're doing is you're

putting... you know, images next to each other and you're writing captions.

Do you know that's called film?

So when I arrived at the film school, I hadn't got any experience of making

films. And so when Amanda and I met in the canteen and we sort of found a

political sort of allegiance, if you like, we decided to go to Greenham

and make a film about Greenham Common. Now, we didn't know the first day that

went. We were actually going to stay there for a year.

But it was actually in a spirit of, oh my gosh, there's a lot of people around

here who want to make films for the mainstream, want to make commercials for

telly, want to do these other things. No, we want to make films about the

around us. And that's how Carrie Green and Home came about.

And I suppose in terms of influences, you know, we took ourselves out of film

school within...

a month of arriving.

So we didn't really have the same experience as everyone else. But I think

the key thing I would say about that time was you were still seeing

documentaries that were being made without the authoritative person and

the voiceover and without the guiding piece that was explaining everything.

as it went and that sort of observational form and that sort of what

don't think it's a technical term, but that onion form where it sort of, you

know, it opens up and it opens up and you think you know what's happening but

actually something else is about to emerge is actually our experience.

It's based on an experience of being at Greenham and getting more and more

involved and actually ending up being among the longest.

longest people who'd stayed at the camp, rather than this sort of, we have an

authoritative and neutral voice. I think that was the really important thing.

And when we came back to film school to put it together, we were very clear. We

were telling an alternate story.

We were not trying to tell an objective story.

Antonia and Jane is a comedy about two women.

Seska Reeves, Melda Staunton, who share, unbeknownst to them, a therapist

and indeed a boyfriend at a certain point. And it has Bill Nye in it.

So it was a fantastic film. It was shot in 11 days.

Every shot that we shot is in the film. There was no spare. There was no

coverage. And it was hugely ambitious.

because it had loads and loads of locations.

And in fact, at one point, I think we were shooting in a big mental

where one wing had the patients and the other wing had us. And we used it for 32

different locations in a period of three days.

So the Scala sort of was really there because it was such an iconic

building.

And it was a sort of a big memory for me personally because I had been coming to

the Scala, you know, since I was a teenager.

And so it was sort of trying to...

speak to who the characters were and how they saw themselves culturally and how

they were positioning themselves.

And actually one shot of the building does all that work for you. So actually,

you know, throughout my life as a director, I have been to various places,

know, that meant a lot to me personally and just use them rather casually as

locations. But it is actually funny how much, of course, things that... have an

iconic status within one's own experience actually have that same

for other people.

And so I think a lot of people really enjoyed the, hey, isn't that the Scala,

I've been there moment, as well as the film itself.

The thing that, you know, that perhaps I would go back to is the period before

that, which is there was...

This heady moment, you know, I lived in Kelly Road, you know, King's Cross was

sort of the rough end of the wedge, and yet it was a sort of a beacon of, you

know, of enlightenment.

And I think that's the thing that sometimes all these regeneration

sort of knock out. They think that they can corporatise.

you know, cultural experience.

They think they can just put it in between, you know, sort of what they

sell you and just leave a little gap and it will fit. But it doesn't work like

that. And I think that the heyday of the Scala, it was part of this

bigger, richer London that had knowns all over the place that meant

that you could build an audience for that kind of film, that kind of theatre.

those kind of images, that kind of politic to a degree.

And it found its expression, you know, in some of the wider social movements

it found its audience in some of those places too.

And I think that's the bit that's important and that's the bit that gets

out. You know, I'm a huge fan of the channel, channel, channel, we want it.

it is devastating when you see, you know, you see the sort of culture.

be put in second place or squeezed into a tiny corner because it doesn't thrive

in a tiny corner.

Do you know it is one of the perennial questions because actually there

were so few you weren't even looking for them.

You know, there were so few.

We weren't a minority.

We were an oddity.

And I think that that is hard for people who have had to fight to, you

know, we weren't pioneers and we weren't, you know, and we weren't a

and we weren't sort of, we weren't what people were looking for and so on and so

on. We were just these oddities. There was, you know, Sally Potter on the one

hand and me here and that one there. And literally...

You know, if you could have counted in America and the UK, 10, that would be a

lot. So I think it didn't present itself as the same problem as it does

now, as one of a lack of equality.

I grew up in London, at least in my teenage years, and I grew up on the NFT,

know, going down there and first started educating myself, just going to movies

on my own. That's when I started as a teenager.

But that was more the canon, you know. They were classics.

They were like, you know, sometimes they do like everything from Double

Indemnity to, you know, some, you know, French Bunuel.

And the same thing, I think, with the ICA, it was more like I saw, you know,

film, experimental film there. And that's all very important and great.

And with the Scholar was the first one where I saw, like, in a way, real, like,

in a way, the joy of pulp or the beauty of pulp.

And they had a really wide selection, as I remember.

I look back now at the...

programs and think, oh, I wish I'd gone to see those Japanese movies.

But as I remember doing all night surf films or American teen films,

that's what I think I mostly remember about the Scala was the kind of real pop

culture.

Plus discovering and being freaked out by David Lynch, who I now consider a

great hero.

I was really interested in film.

My dad was an actor, so I spent part of my childhood in Hollywood.

My first stepmother was a starlet, had been a starlet, who actually was the

brain and the brain that wouldn't die, probably a film that you showed.

So I grew up around acting and stuff, and I really was interested in film. I

went to movies a lot as a teenager, but I never thought of myself as a director

because I did not know of any women directors.

apart from Lenny Riefenstahl and later Lena Wertmuller. And I thought that to

a director, you have to be very technical and know about, because once I

working in TV and I was hearing people talking about lenses and all this

technical stuff, I thought, well, I'll never do that.

It must be very difficult and you need a lot of training.

And when I actually started directing, I realized all you need is to have a good

idea or to know what's interesting.

and to know what you want and to know what you want it to look like. And you

don't need everybody else to do the rest of it. I wish I'd known that 10 years

before I started directing.

If the Scala was running now, I think it would look at, I hope it would look at,

a lot of the forgotten or unjustly neglected directors.

That's what a place like Scala was great for.

Because there were women directors who never got a shot.

Black directors, there's lots of all these, you know, black cinema that was

completely overlooked, never got mainstream showing films that got, like,

know, open for a few days.

So there's, I think the...

What's important is films constantly being reassessed and these films need to

shown and talked about so that the conversation keeps going.

Outside of mainstream or commercial cinema, it's extremely important for

history, for people watching, learning, immersing themselves in film.

remember getting a super 8 camera almost as soon as i left college um and a

projector and then i literally had a diary of about three or four years worth

you know super 8 whenever i could get my hands on it um and you know sending it

off to switzerland or i mean to send off to had my little splicer had my had a

um you know this projector that i found um and

doing weird experiments at home. We used to project films, I'm sure everyone did

this, out the window, across the road, onto the flats in front of

us, playing around with the Super 8 projector, watching the film burning up

mucking about.

I just got really obsessively interested in doing that, in just making little

movies and trying to put something together.

And I didn't know where that was going, but I just got really interested and

then decided that I wanted to go to art college.

So I decided I was going to give up acting and started an art foundation and

realised I was just, you know, hiding from what I needed to really be doing

because I loved being an actor. It was not for me being art college and that

wasn't really the thing. It was just, I was trying to feel my way into...

something that I didn't know quite what it was yet.

But definitely being here and the exposure to all this sort of diversity

possible worlds and possible ideas was all bubbling away in a very

messy, chaotic fashion that eventually, you know, I found my way in the way that

I have done to kind of go on to make films that seem to be very music related

far anyway.

So the way in which the Scala was programmed, the Scala was a repertory

meaning that it showed a different double or triple bill every day and all

nighters on a Saturday.

And by the time I started working at the Scala in 1988, it really established

its programme.

It started with Stephen Woolley and Jane Pilling as its programmers, and they'd

taken it in a certain direction.

That changed a bit when Joanne Seller started programming at the Scala. And

she was joined by Mark Fallon,

The programming changed yet again.

Mark had been programming on his own for a while when he decided to go back to

the States in 1988.

So that was the point at which they advertised for a single programmer.

I knew a bit about programming, but I also thought, how difficult can it be?

just choose which films you want to show.

Actually, it was a little bit more complicated than that. But only in so

you needed a good knowledge of...

the sort of films that worked well at the Scala, but we had a lot of

information. We had a book, which I'll show you now.

This is a later edition of one of the main programming tools at the Scala.

Ledger, which writes down every film that shows.

and day by day, the amount of money that was taken at the box office, but also

the amount of money that was taken at the cafe, which is actually really

important because the cafe was a big part of the cinema's income.

So if I'm going back on this one, this is May 1991, and you

can see my handwriting here.

There's a double bill there of Cafe Flesh and Thundercrack on Monday the 6th

May, and the box office take was £1 ,331, which is

pretty good.

The following day was a double bill of Romuald and Juliet and Life is a Long

Quiet River, and their box office take was £230 .64.

So you can see the sort of variation in the success of the Scala

programming. But the most important thing was that it sort of balanced out

make a weekly take of around five grand or so. So that's what we were aiming at.

So it's really the audience that programmed Scala in so far as if a

or an all -nighter performed well as a repertory cinema, we'd bring it right

back the next month or the month after.

The way in which I literally put together the program was, prop number

this. This was my telephone at the gala, and

this was the means by which I communicated with.

The people encased in this box who were the distributors of the films that we

showed at the Scala and some other contact details.

And for example, nice mud honey sticker there.

Here we have a very important contact for the Scala, Premier Castle Supreme.

071 437 4415.

I think that phone number was embedded in my memory because this was Stan Hart

and his assistant Eileen Brown and they were distributors of the Ross Mayer

film.

The 70s and 80s were a dark time for cinema in terms of freedom of

expression.

the history of the relationship between exhibition and production and what was

then the British Board of Film Centers later or currently the British Board of

Film Classification was long and complicated and thorny and hilarious in

kinds of ways there was a period where the the chief of the British Board of

Film Centers was a blind man for instance but in the 80s There was a

reaction. The early 70s had seen a bunch of very controversial films.

The Devils, A Clockwork Orange, Straw Dogs, Soldier Blue.

And there had been a lot of tabloid stories about how there was too much sex

violence in the cinema.

Also, there had been a few notable art movies that had had a hard time getting

any kind of exhibition.

Andy Warhol, Paul Morrissey's films, some of Pasolini's movies.

But by the late 70s and the early 80s, James Furman, a Canadian, was head of

British Board of Film Classification.

And he was actually personally a rather well -intentioned liberal. He was

somebody who, for instance, let all David Cronenberg's films through uncut

because he looked at them and he saw that they had meaning and there was a

point. Which leads to that.

I think, rather high -handed patronizing notion that it's all right if it's in a

serious film, but it's not all right if it's in exploitation, trash, or

whatever, which requires you to define the difference.

And, of course, I'm really interested in that point where they clash together,

as indeed was David Cronenberg at the time, but also the early 80s with the

of the video nasties, kerfuffle.

which meant that there were lots and lots of tabloid stories and video

rental had become this huge thing in Britain, almost uniquely in the world

because cable television, which had taken off in America long before we had

satellite television here, had sort of preempted the market for...

instant consumption of relatively new films.

Video rental really took off in Britain around 1980, 81.

And about 20 minutes later, people were saying that kids are renting out the

Driller Killer and SS Experiment Camp and all this kind of stuff.

And then, again, a wild ride until the passing of the Video Recordings Act.

Sort of changed things, although this is the thing about the censorious.

If you give them an inch, They won't even notice it. So the passing of the

Recordings Act didn't stop the clamoring for increased censorship.

It's one of those things.

In the period before the First World War, every time that there was

some crisis on the continent, somebody would get up in Parliament and say, more

funds for the fleet.

And this went on for 30 years, and it didn't stop the First World War

So every time there's any kind of kerfuffle about censorship, somebody

in Parliament and says, we should be stricter about this. Right now, they're

talking about stricter controls on streaming, because that's the current

but video at times.

To backtrack, the situation of the Scala and other repertory cinemas, including

the National Film Theatre, part of the BFI, an Augustan official semi

-government body, were as membership cinemas. They were able to show

films that didn't have a British Board of Film Censors certificate.

You add your little membership card, I still have.

One here which I think cost all of 25p the first time I got one and then you

could come in and see anything That's why for instance thundercrack could

under these conditions There was perhaps a slightly again

elitist patronizing field, the idea that all you metropolitan urban

intellectuals could go to a club cinema and watch these things.

But if it was playing at the Isolde or the JC in your local town, then that was

a no -no and it should be stopped.

Because these were big issues that were debated a lot in film culture,

and when I say film culture, I don't just mean the august halls of the BFI, I

mean fanzines, I mean in auditoria, I mean in cafes around cinemas.

The Scala put on whole seasons of video nasties, essentially.

There are these big programs, sort of...

with a semi -campaigning nature.

But also to point out the fact that a lot of the films that were supposedly

beyond the pale on video actually had BBFC certificates because they played

theatrically, albeit sometimes in cut forms.

I remember there was a bit of a revelation when some of these films were

shown here in their uncut forms.

And also I remember the groans when semi -accidentally, you know, the cut

version of Zombie Flesh Eaters played.

And just as the censor cut came in, you could hear the moaning in the audience,

which was louder than the ooze of disgust when you saw the uncut version.

As a little aside, that's a really famous instance of...

What's not often said is that the censored version is more upsetting,

the more you see of the special effects, the less real it looks.

So the censors actually made that sequence more horrific by trimming the

rubbery, gloopy stuff.

And frankly,

anybody who was upset had closed their eyes anyway, so they just had the sound

effect of it.

But certainly the Scarlet was at the forefront of...

showing these movies on a big screen. It was the first place you could see The

Driller Killer on a big screen in Britain.

And actually also the forefront of pointing out that some of these films

actually quite good.

Some of them weren't.

Some of them were really, really boring.

If you're like a video nasty obsessive who has to track down everything that

banned.

you've got some really miserable evenings ahead of you, I have to say,

real head -scratching dullness. But there are still some astonishing stuff

there. And actually, some of those things were not particularly well served

what was then blurry pan and scan VHS.

Standards of duping in the early home video industry were not the best.

But watching something like those really strange Lucio Fulci zombie

gore surreal horror movies like The Beyond and House by the Cemetery, Zombie

Flesh Eaters, City Living Dead, I remember seeing Manhattan Babies, seeing

on a huge screen in widescreen.

is actually astonishing anyway.

They are remarkably peculiar films.

Watching 10 of those in a row, as I remember we did once, is literally a

-altering experience, especially since whoever did that program cruelly

programmed Videodrome as the last film.

And Videodrome is a film that basically asks the question, what have you been

doing for the last 12 hours?

What have you been watching and what has it done to you?

Val. Val was a rockabilly showman who we worked with on psychotronic events,

which ranged from the sublime to the mostly ridiculous.

Oh, God almighty.

Val, he's such a customer, isn't he?

Yeah, so after the Sting race split up, we were quite a socialist band and all

the money had gone back into buying equipment.

So when we split up...

The guitarist had two or three really nice guitars. He had a Telecaster and a

Rickenbacker and a Vox AC -30.

And the drummer had a couple of drum kits. And the bass player had a really

Rickenbacker bass and a bass amp.

And obviously as a singer, I didn't have anything. And I think there was like a

few grand, three grand in the pot.

So they said, well, you take the money and we'll take our amps and guitar.

So that's what I used to start this video shop, which I decided to open for

Psychotronic.

And obviously it wanted to be somewhere where...

it was popular so camden market was the obvious place and there was a chap

called barry appleby that owned the building that had vinyl solution which

buck street a big record shop which had um all these cartoons painted on it i

think vince ray did them um really early on and had a motorbike i think half

crashed through the wall it was quite funky and then on one side around the

there was a little door they had all these record labels on the wall

grotty staircase going down to the basement and then you went into a really

basement and there was another record shop in there and then there was

Psychotronic which is just every wall was covered in things for videos and the

videos were in a big display cabinet for records and magazines and fanzines and

so that was my bread and butter but you made money really.

doing under -the -counter stuff because that was what people wanted. They wanted

uncut stuff. So I used to go over to Holland where you could get Clockwork

Orange or the Ilse She -Wolf of the SS films or stuff like stuff that you

couldn't get in this country.

And I used to buy a copy of each of those, bring them back, and then do

-generation copies, do a colour photocopy sleeve.

And it wasn't like it was...

10 you know when you used to get clockwork orange and someone had taped

someone had taped off someone had taped it it was all like you couldn't these

were at least first generation they were pretty good and that's why i sold them

i think they were 10 quid each and i i still had a thing at the holiday i'd

a stall and it was like locust you i'd have like 500 videos and they'd be gone

in 10 minutes and people just be like 10 quid so and that but you know you have

to be careful people have you got anything on the cups phone calls no no

everything's above board here yes is it trading standards we're obviously

keeping an eye on you and stuff but and then yeah so that that was that

psychotronic so we then built up this big fan base of people and then there

a book called incredibly strange films research did and i think jonathan ross

got um Onto it and he thought to make a good theory and I'll get to meet almost

all the heroes of mine and Make a load of money hurrah.

And so that he made a theory called incredibly strange films and He'd come

the shop and was asking to get copies of stuff by these people but then of

course they made contact with Ray Dennis Steckler and Ted three Michaels and all

these like for american driving filmmakers films have never been

this country so all of a sudden i had access to their phone numbers so me and

mate mark i said look right let's put see if we can put these out so again

another scala connection we went to palace pictures which owned the scala um

also did all the early john waters films and they're just like a really cool

video label and the evil dead and they had great artwork by graham humphries

they were just like a really cool company and i i said oh we we want to do

ray dennis decklin movies rat finger boo -boo the thrill pillars and they're

like yeah we'll distribute them great so i designed the sleeves and we put those

those that was monday label called mondo movies so he put those three out and

then i think we did plan nine from outer space because i've met johnny legends

he was a he was

film fanatic he'd made a really weird rockabilly porn movie called teenage

cruisers um which he'd done on the back of a dolomite when they were making

dolomite like they apparently none of the crew got up before about three o

'clock in the afternoon so he'd like to take all their equipment and use it in

the morning and film this weird porn movie and then then give it back to them

before they got up

And he knew loads of people in the porn industry, but he also, he knew Tor

Johnson in the 50s, he'd like, got all these great stories. But he was also

signed to Rolling Rock Records, and he did a load of rockabilly, despite

like a complete burnout hippie with long hair and a beard.

He would do all this crazy rockabilly stuff dressed in a confederate suit.

So my band at the time, the Earls and Swabs, we'd learnt his set, and so he

to come over and we'd do stuff at the Scala.

do a bunch of movies trailers or something and then he would do gigs with

down in in the west end um yeah we'd support him and then he'd come on and

he was he's a complete nutter but really charming um and then through him i was

like oh i'd love to put out orgy of the dead which was one of the last films

that ed would um screenplay

And I did not, I mean, there isn't, there's nothing.

It's just like a static shot of strippers with some people tied up

them. It's rubbish.

But anyway, he wrote the script and worked as a runner on it. And I

said, Johnny, can you get Stephen Apostolos' telephone number?

And... And he's like, you don't want to work with him. I promise you, you don't

want to work with him. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I do, I do.

And so we did.

And it was hilarious.

So we had to get a print of Orgy of the Dead. So we decided to go to Jane at the

Scala. And we said, can we do an Ed Wood all day?

And we'll show a bunch of Ed Wood movies.

And then we'll get this guy, Steve Apostoloff, who produced and directed

his last movies and knew him.

And we'll get him on stage.

And then he can bring the print of Orgy of the Dead, which I guess it must have

been.

UK premiere, because I don't suppose it was ever shown in the country before.

So we pick him up in the airport, and he's got his white silk suit on, a big

silk tie, and as soon as he gets out of the airport, he's got a huge cigar, and

he's like, Tell them Apostoloff is here!

The mighty Apostoloff! Great Apostoloff!

Steve Apostoloff! I am the great Apostoloff! I've made cocktail bunnies!

done many good films!

Ah, yes!

Can we get some hockers?

let's get some whores and we like anyway so i kicked a mate of mine out of his

flat which is a really grotty bed fit and that's why i put him up and he got

there he's a shithole i said yeah yeah okay bye well get hooked yeah yeah okay

hey we'll get hooked yeah yeah we got rid of him

And the next day he rings me up in the morning. He's like, what do we do today?

So me and Mark have to take him somewhere.

He's driving around. He goes, I bet a lot of fucking goes on here.

And they just go, yeah, whatever.

Then you go past Hampstead Heath and there's bushes.

And he goes, I bet a lot of fucking goes on in those bushes.

I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm sure it does.

And then he goes past some big stately home. He goes, oh, all those servants. I

bet a lot of fucking goes on here.

And I was like, yeah, yeah.

And he went on for like two days. And we're just going on.

god and i said to eddie and eddie did and he thought yeah yeah right but then

finally the festival comes and we've got the scar i didn't have the best um

acoustics and I probably got a really shitty PA so we showed a bunch of Ed

movies and then I come out and go ladies and gentlemen thank you for coming it's

the Ed Wood all there and for great surprise we've got Stephen Apostoloff

producer and director of Orgy of the Dead and he worked with Ed and knew Ed

well and he'll tell us lots of interesting stuff about him I'm sure so

Apostoloff and he comes out with this big Bulgarian accent and he's like oh

and then he just dries I hadn't stopped talking for two days and he just um

any questions and everyone's like it's cold everyone's just like about what

we don't know anything about you what and so i said when i seem to remember

there's a funny story about the rap party of orgy of the dead he went and he

sort of clicked at me ah yes so i give eddie some money and he goes off and i

say get food and drink ha ha and he comes back and he has vodka and whiskey

gin and i think oh my god for eddie this is food ah

And everyone's like, ah, yeah.

And then he carries on, but he's got such a thick accent, he's sort of going,

ah, so, another time, Eddie Wood, and I said to Eddie,

what the, this went on for about 20 minutes, and they go, oh, God, that was

brilliant. That was really good.

It's nice to live in a time where, everything is available instantly right

great to read about some weird italian western and you might be able to find it

on prime that night on amazon prime admittedly a terrible copy that's you

been cut from what was probably a beautiful widescreen print into a

television shape but all the same it is there but the scholar reminds me of the

time when you had to put a real effort in to access culture and then when you

find finally found it not only did you have the fun of seeing the thing but you

had the fun of feeling that you were some sort of adept some kind of explorer

that had found their way to this destination so it was absolutely

it and it meant you you started to scoop up and and paste in all these gaps in

your cultural knowledge when you did see something here um that you didn't

understand or that baffled you or excited you or you wanted to know more

you probably, you couldn't answer any of those questions. There was no way you

could look to find out.

You couldn't find out what else the person had done.

So, I remember thinking, I saw Papalini's pig die here.

I never, I thought, I came on, I thought, what the hell was that?

And I just read about two days ago, I was reading the booklet that comes with

the BFI edition of Madea, which I'd watched.

and it's said about it being an allegory for fascism, and there's two stories in

it, and they overlap, and you, I went, ah, yes!

30 years later.

But I would have known, now I would have known, because I'd have Googled it.

But it was good to have, even to have that, what a pleasure to have, to have

mystery, and not really know what things were.

People talk about there being a sort of, an identity of the audience for the

Scholar. I don't really remember that.

because I was in it. And I think sometimes when you're in a thing, you're

necessarily really aware that it fits some kind of demographic.

Certainly you think back to the sorts of people that were here and you think,

where have they gone?

And I think lots of us, we've sort of been legislated out of existence.

The sort of people that made films that were on at the Scala and the sort of

people that went to see them were the kind of people who would hold down a bit

of a temp job.

do some other kind of weird piece of art in their spare time, live somewhere

cheap in a shared house or a squat and sort of get by in a world that doesn't

exist anymore.

I think coming to this gala and seeing things here made you realise that

something you've never heard of or something that had been dismissed as

have great stuff in it.

It made you realise that there's all sorts of brilliant things happening off

-piste, you know, in areas that you were never going to be directed to.

via normal methods.

And it also made you realise that there was an audience here for whom something

no one else had heard of or something that was considered to have no value

be the greatest thing they'd ever seen.

And so I suppose it jumbled up all your ideas of how we apply cultural value to

things. And it also had a... Coming here had a sense of something being an

event, which I suppose...

It's something you try to hang on to in whatever you do.

I'd like to think that... I mean, I've made one film now with Michael

Cumming, who did Brass Eye, King Rocker, and I'd like to think it would be the

sort of thing that could have played here 30 years ago, because that would

more to me than it being on BBC4.

The Scarlet's ultimate legacy is obviously going to be that loads of

are... involved in film now whether they review them distribute them write them

or whatever um would have had their taste broadened and formed by the

programming here and um you sort of see it you kind of see that generational

bounce you can kind of look at things from 10 years ago and see that the only

way those people could have had those influences or known about them would be

come to this cinema or a cinema like it so you see it you see it kind of bleed

through 20, 30 years later almost.

This is my Scala membership card and I can see by the date that I

would have got it on the 9th of February.

That's a weird way of saying it.

This is my Scala membership card.

It says cancelled 9th of February 1986.

So I would have got it one year before, aged 15, on a trip, probably my

first trip to the Scala with Joe Cornish, who had told me all about it.

And we were going to see an audience test screening of a little film

called Nightmare on Elm Street by a guy called Wes Craven, who back in those

days was...

a sort of left -field nerdy director, the kind of director that only people

Joe would know about from magazines like Fangoria and Starburst.

Nightmare on Elm Street turned out to be the film that kind of put him into the

mainstream for a while.

Anyway, we didn't know too much about it.

And this was an uncut version.

This was an uncut version of Nightmare on Elm Street.

You have seen... And this was an uncut version of Nightmare on Elm Street. And

this was the audience response sheet that we had to fill out afterwards.

And that was just incredible. I just felt like, well, this is the best thing

that's ever happened. I'm 15.

I'm seeing an 18.

Uncut. No one's ever seen it before. I've seen it way before everyone else.

They're probably going to change the film based on what I write here.

If I've got any suggestions, I'll probably do it.

I'm one of the coolest people in the world. And I took an extra one of these

because I wanted to show people like, you know, that's what I do on the

I'm like my mum's great. Oh, you won't have heard of it. New, new film.

It's really scary.

Guy with scissors on his hands.

way scarier than anything you've ever seen and it's like screws with your mind

every time you think like you can't tell if something's real or not because the

guy only comes out in your nightmares and and yeah we were part of the test

screening unit that did work on Nightmare on Elm Street so the whole

of seeing Nightmare on Elm Street first in its uncut form You have seen

Nightmare on Elm Street in its uncut verses.

In its present form, do you think an 18 certificate is appropriate?

Yes, I do.

It says yes, no, if no, what do you suggest?

So I just said yes, it is appropriate.

I mean, maybe something stronger than 18 would be appropriate.

Are there any particularly horrifying or offensive things that you feel should

be cut from the film?

No.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how terrifying do you think the film is?

10.

How often do you go to see horror movies?

Once a week, once a month, once a year? Never.

I lied and said once a week. I never saw them, really.

And it was completely terrifying.

What age, sex are you?

Masculine or feminine?

1985.

No spectrum in the ages.

What are your three favourite horror films? I don't think I'd seen three

films at that point, aged 15.

The scariest thing I'd seen at that point was Brainstorm,

I think.

Briefly, what are your feelings about the film in your own words? I .e.

horrifying, not scary enough, too violent, too long.

well or poorly made, thrilling, etc.

I just said, it's amazing.

I think I remember writing, this film is going to be a big hit.

Congratulations.

Have you seen any other films directed by Wes Craven?

No. Joe had, but I hadn't.

How large an audience appeal do you think this film will have?

Very large.

Anyway, it was the greatest day.

Seeing this film in this very adult environment and enjoying

it, like properly enjoying it, feeling a little bit freaked out by it, I

remember thinking, maybe I shouldn't have seen that film. Maybe it's going to

something bad to my head.

And now I've been to that weird cinema as well, like, what's happening to me?

Anyway, that was my memory of it.

I think the time that we're talking about, which is, for me, was mid to

late 70s.

And the films I made, like Company of Wolves and Absolute

Beginners, and Mona Lisa, were deeply affected by those times and what was

on. And Thatcher and the way Britain was changing, the miners,

the... The movies that have been made since, like Pride, which summed up what

was happening then, was a big shift in society and how we were having to

cope with this repression that was happening everywhere.

A little bit like, I suppose, Germany in the 30s and the 20s, that

artists would always respond to that.

And I think there was a lot of response to Thatcher that was... A lot of good

things came out of the honesty of her behaviour towards certain

members of society.

So when I say something else would have happened, I mean that in a very positive

way, in a way that things were happening then.

We were being forced to come up with answers. We were being forced to try and

make

our voices heard and I think Scarlet was a fantastic contribution

and a great and a wonderful conduit for voices

that were not being listened to and voices that weren't being heard whether

they're as obscure as people getting together to watch kung fu movies or

getting together to watch Jean Genet films or getting together to celebrate

Patrick McGoohan and The Prisoner. It didn't matter. The point was that they

were going together to enjoy their otherness and their eccentricity

and their supposed degenerate attitude towards

the world, which of course it was never.

And I think what The Scarlet became was a friendly place for people with voices

and

But I'm always hopeful that those people would have found other places as well,

because I think there was a real sense of disenchantment at the time, which

you know, it was in the air. People just wanted things to be

better and to be different and wanted to get away from the repression of that

particular evil government at that time.

But I do think a lot of people that were coming to London, or were having

to come to London, would try and escape from an even narrower mind,

from either, you know, north of Watford or west of Watford, would find

the Scala.

And it's interesting, again,

And I'm sure this is something you guys will find in your travels and talking to

the old audiences of the Scala.

It's interesting to find these people who may not have just been in love with

films or may even like films that much, who found the Scala as a home. And then

people who absolutely adored films, whether it's Christopher Nolan or

it's Ralph Fiennes or people that I come across in my world who are so proud.

Peter Strickland to have ever gone to the Scala.

It gave them inspiration in their different, I mean, can you think of

different filmmakers, Peter Strickland and Greg Fiennes and Christopher Nolan,

all of whom were directors.

And the Scala was a home for them, because it was a home for people who

cinema, but weren't narrow in their love of cinema, that you could actually,

there were some of us,

I mean, I was one of those people who would want to watch a Bunuel double bill

and want to watch a Factory Records night and would want to watch Untamed

and would want to watch The Untouchables and would want to watch a Fassbender

double bill.

And that's who these people were.

People who would come and actually watch not just two days of the Scala, but

maybe four or five days of the Scala and dip into all of those genres and all of

those kinds of movies.

So I think that's...

Though that atmosphere of that time, in particular the late 70s,

early 80s and through the 80s, was one of generosity in terms

of what people wanted to share with like -minded people.

And as I say, the scholar was a safe place.

It's okay there.

It's all right to be as eccentric as you like within the limits of the law.

because people felt safe within that scholar.

And I don't know if the times are different

now, and we are now so much more sophisticated, and I think we're also a

bit scared of each other now, and we're scared of being more open and emotional

with each other, in a way.

And oddly, the thing about cinema, which I love, is that it's a private place as

well.

And I think people go and they watch a movie and some of them don't hang out in

the bar, some of them don't see their friends and just go home.

And I think that that's what was quite interesting about the Scala is that it

was, you could quietly go to the Scala and not participate.

There was no onus on you becoming completely eccentric, completely bonkers

because you'd seen a completely eccentric, bonkers film.

But there was that possibility of meeting people and finding people who

like -minded.

Whether that's as odd as Tim Newman and Mark Kermode hanging out together,

or whether it's as strange as a couple of musicians meeting

at the Scarlet because they're going to see a movie about reggae.

It was definitely...

place where you could take the opportunity to meet with like -minded

So I do think some of those paths

would have crossed regardless of the Scala, but I think Scala did help, but I

think that there would have been something else created like the Scala if

didn't exist.

I'm not sure what it would have been, but I know that it was a product of

definitely of a fear, in a way, that everything will be

taken away, that we're in a time where things, where conformity

and authority were quite controlling.

I mean, when I think back to one of my favourite double bills, which was

I Married a Monster from Outer Space and Bride of Frankenstein, which we

programmed on the day of Princess Diana and Charles' wedding.

And I think about, we actually got a bit sick for that.

You know, people were a bit annoyed that we'd put Bride of Frankenstein and I

Married a Monster from Outer Space, even though, as it turned out, it was pretty

prophetic.

But I do...

do think about those times and how small things we did at the Scala were a bit

outrageous and I think we all benefited massively from that.