Matchbox Cine

Charlie Says: Subtitles On

In the first in an occasional series, Matchbox’s Charlie Little, who drives and delivers our access consultancy work, advocates for more consistent provision of better quality descriptive subtitles in cinemas

Ever since the closure of Edinburgh Filmhouse, a cinema where I felt safe as a deafblind person and which regularly screened descriptive subtitled screenings, I’ve had to gradually rebuild my confidence in attending an unfamiliar cinema. I live in a city with a variety of multiplexes and boutique cinemas, but not many with independent programming, let alone accessible screenings. Luckily, I have a nearby Picturehouse with both independent programming and accessible screenings.

After Filmhouse’s closure in October 2022, I hardly visited the cinema, and I felt a deep loss of independence. There aren’t many recreational activities that I can confidently do alone, but cinema-going at Filmhouse was an exception for me. Last year, I was lucky enough to meet my partner, who also shares the same love for the big screen as me. Attending the cinema together and with friends meant that I rebuilt my confidence and feeling of safety as I was able to familiarise myself with the space on a regular basis. It’s meant that I now have the confidence to attend that cinema alone, as I feel more able to ask the staff for support. Gaining back that independence and confidence has been monumental for me.

I’ve had some brilliant cinema adventures in the last year, from experiencing descriptive subtitled screenings of Barbenheimer, All Of Us Strangers, and Kim’s Video (to name a few). It’s liberating to be able to rely on local cinemas which schedule reliable, regular, accessible screenings (as should be the norm), but whereas I used to hold a breath waiting to see the first line of subtitles on the screen as the film begins, I now wait to see the quality of the subtitles.

I strongly believe that descriptive subtitles are meant to create as equal an experience as possible and that they represent a layered soundtrack that a hearing person would thread into the overarching experience of the film. This is a belief shared by my colleagues at Matchbox Cine, who have the balancing act of providing concise and immersive descriptive subtitles that will bring a Deaf person into the film experience.

Theatrical quad poster for Challengers, featuring stylised close-up image of Zendaya gazing over sunglasses sitting on the bridge of her nose. — UK theatrical poster for *Challengers* (Luca Guadagnino, 2024)

I saw Challengers recently (what an energetic, fun, horny movie!), and I groaned when I saw the first descriptive label¹, which was in all capitals². There were missing and inconsistent labels (which my own hearing partner noted as well), and while there were some descriptions of the music, I didn’t feel like they represented the energy of the soundtrack or the film’s atmosphere. Given the importance of music to the experience of a film, this is something that absolutely matters in the moment, but if handled badly can have ripple effects for the Deaf and hard-of-hearing audience, as a film’s cultural footprint expands (see the header image, from this week’s Saturday Night Live).

The featured songs are notable, and there are many Deaf and hard-of-hearing people who have some hearing (like myself) or those who acquire deafness later in life and who would recognise the song and, therefore, its significance, if its title was specified in the label alongside descriptive labels of the music’s tone.

In an article that begins, “No one does a needle drop quite like Luca Guadagnino”, USA Today quote the Challengers director on the song’s selection:

Guadagnino says he worked extensively with the movie’s editor, Marco Costa, “on finding the right piece of music. It took us a while and we tried many things,” including [David Bowie’s] “Time Will Crawl,” which now plays later in the sequence. “Eventually, it must’ve been my partner – who’s a bit younger than me – who said to use ‘Hot in Herre,’ because that’s what that generation clicked with.”

Music video for Nelly’s “Hot In Herre” (with DS)

I often encounter films from major distributors with subpar subtitle files, which feel like they’ve been developed without the feedback of Deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences and the spectrum of hearing loss within our community. I’ve also encountered a few instances where cinemas and exhibitors have operated under the false assumption that a film without dialogue or a film with translation subtitles doesn’t require full descriptive subtitles.

Like many others, I was very keen to watch The Zone of Interest in the cinema. I waited to see if any accessible screenings would be scheduled, as I knew the soundtrack was instrumental to the film. I later found out that the distributor hadn’t sourced a descriptive subtitles file. I attended the film, and as the film is only in German and Polish dialogue, the entire dialogue was subtitled. The subtitles themselves were quite small, with poor contrast, so audiences at the back struggled. I also wondered throughout if there were any music cues or sound effects I was missing out on.

Theatrical quad poster for The Zone of Interest, which features a photograph of a garden party fringed by barbed wire fences, trees and darkness all around — UK theatrical poster for *The Zone of Interest* (Jonathan Glazer, 2023)

So, when Clarisse Loughrey, reviewing for the Independent, refers to the film’s extended title sequence providing “a kind of sensory deprivation,” the irony isn’t lost on me. She continues, “A darkened screen gives way to the hellish sirens of Mica Levi’s score, before we awaken, powerless to disrupt [Rudolf] Hoss’s hermetic reality,” describing an effect that would be lost to many Deaf audiences, without the vital developing context that descriptive subtitles provide.

I always have an additional layer of disappointment when a non-English film is intentionally shown without full descriptive subtitles, since the audience is already prepared to read the majority of the film. When the spoken language isn’t accessible to English-speaking audiences, it’s the unquestioned, defacto norm to have text on the screen. But, when the shoe is on the other foot, and Deaf people aren’t able to access the full auditory experience and therefore need descriptive subtitles, then it’s too jarring, or it feels like too much of an ask. It becomes a point of comfort over access, as well as double standards. This comfort for hearing audiences is imagined and assumed by exhibitors, with audiences increasingly attending descriptive subtitled screenings elsewhere and using descriptive subtitles on social media and streaming platforms.

On a whim, I decided to see Robot Dreams. It was one of my favourite films this year, and I found a lot of genuine joy in this tender, comedic, and surprising animation. I wanted to see it with descriptive subtitles, but I couldn’t find any accessible screenings in my city. The film has no dialogue, but the soundtrack is essential to the film’s storytelling, optimising sound effects and music to build characterisation. This auditory significance is mentioned by Wendy Ide, writing for the Guardian, where she references the use of Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September”, “a recurring musical motif, used to increasingly wrenching effect”. Again, an important aspect of the storytelling lost to the Deaf audience – or frustratingly teased to the hard-of-hearing audience, who perhaps have some sense without clarity of its significance.

I had a similar experience seeing The Zone of Interest without descriptive subtitles, where I felt like my experience was perhaps compromised. I chose my keen interest in the film over my access needs, which feels unfaithful to the work I do as an access consultant and to my own beliefs. While I feel this sliver of guilt, of fraud, I have to recognise that this situation is representative of the fact that Deaf and hard-of-hearing people feel they have to tolerate and settle for inaccessibility every time they consider going to the cinema, whether that’s because they’re interested in a particular film or because they don’t want to feel left out of a group activity with hearing people. I have to remind myself and others that compromising on my access needs only happens when access doesn’t exist, because either cinemas aren’t scheduling accessible screenings or access materials aren’t created or shared.

With The Zone of Interest, I spoke to an independent exhibitor who had understood that the film would arrive with both descriptive subtitles and audio description. The DCP (the hard drive that stores the film files) arrived with a closed caption version of the descriptive subtitles, which can’t be shown on a cinema screen unless reformatted³. The distributors, in this case, didn’t endeavour to prepare or deliver the file(s) useful for UK exhibition, and essentially waved off the query, saying, “dialogue subtitles are enough”. This is an all-too-common issue of misinformation and misunderstanding around access delivery, ultimately impacting audiences with access needs, and missing an opportunity to bring The Zone of Interest to the widest audience possible while offering a sub-par experience to anyone who relies upon, to whatever extent, that provision.

Theatrical quad poster for Robot Dreams, featuring image of the animated characters holding hands while walking along a city street, with the films title on a cinema awning above them. — UK theatrical poster for *Robot Dreams* (Pablo Berger, 2023)

Robot Dreams screened at Independent Cinema Office’s Autumn Screening Days in 2023, and as part of their efforts to support and standardise accessible screenings, ICO commissioned my colleagues at Matchbox Cinesub to create a descriptive subtitle file for the film⁴. After some research, I did find that some independent cinemas in other parts of the UK showed the film with descriptive subtitles.⁵ The frustration lies in the fact that a professional subtitle file existed, but it wasn’t widely employed. I don’t know if it’s because the multiplexes in my city didn’t have access to it or because there’s a misunderstanding that the film didn’t need to be presented with descriptive subtitles as “there’s no dialogue”, or simply because they chose not to use it.

Through my personal and professional experiences, I regularly come up against access failures that could be prevented through resource and information sharing. A few years ago, myself and Matchbox Cine were part of the working group behind Sidecard. Originally supported by ICO, Film Hub Scotland and Film Hub Wales/Inclusive Cinema, and now facilitated by Matchbox Cine, Sidecard is a free, online database designed for logging and researching access materials made for films. Users can search and upload details of descriptive subtitles, audio description files and other materials related to cinema accessibility. The site also offers full glossaries and best practice guides related to distributing and screening films accessibly.

The subtitle file information for Robot Dreams was on Sidecard – you simply have to enter the film’s name in the homepage search window – and ICO or Matchbox Cine would have shared it with anyone who wanted to put on accessible screenings, including the distributor creating the DCPs for cinemas to use.

For this year’s Deaf Awareness Week, I wanted to celebrate the leaps and bounds I’ve made in my own personal journey of accessible cinema-going. I’m also going to hold space for the disappointment and frustrations that come with cinema-going as a deaf person, and my own goals as a professional access consultant.

This week, and every week, I’m calling on others to support Deaf audiences and advocate for access in whatever way you can. You might ask your local cinema about their accessible screenings, or you may share Sidecard widely within the sector and use it yourself. Maybe, hopefully, you’ll share this blog – and if it affects you, you’re very welcome to get in touch, to commiserate, collaborate or collude.

Charlie Little, Access Consultant

Subtitles made for access purposes include, in addition to all dialogue, descriptive elements in the form of speech identifiers “[Charlie] This is the dialogue.”; sound labels “[Charlie screams”]; and music labels “[Music – “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire]”, as required. ↩︎
All-caps are a hallmark of “closed caption” subtitle files prepared for US television, and often denote a sub-par or only moderately effective file, in editorial terms. ↩︎
“CCAP” DCPs come with subtitle files prepared to “closed captions” specs, and are designed for use with individual handheld devices that are a) not in wide use in the UK and b) generally considered extremely unreliable where they are in wide use, the USA. “OCAP” DCPs come with subtitle files prepared so that they can be seen on-screen, by the entire audience. Since CCAP files are prepared and formatted for the handheld devices, they typically can’t be used for OCAP screenings, the equipment won’t allow it. ↩︎
The Independent Cinema Office (ICO) commission theatrical-quality descriptive subtitles, where none exist, for films selected to be showcased in their Screening Days programmes, which are designed to give exhibitors “the chance to watch the best upcoming film releases from across the globe and discuss them with industry peers”. Typically, those subtitle files are used for the online editions of Screening Days, where they can be switched on and off. The files are then shared with the distributors, so that they can make use of them for the films’ theatrical, streaming and/or disc release – if they choose to. The idea is to mitigate the effort and expense required and therefore facilitate and encourage accessible screenings, but packaging DCPs or repackaging existing DCPs with these access materials is an expense and effort in itself, so it doesn’t always happen. ↩︎
Robot Dreams is now available to rent via Curzon Home Cinema, but it’s not immediately clear whether they’re making use of a descriptive subtitle file here. Unfortunately Curzon don’t note the presence or absence of access materials in their listings – you have to pay £15 before you find out if they’re on there. ↩︎

The Exotic Ones: Jimmy McDonough In Conversation

Legendary forensic biographer tells all!

From Friday June 30th to Sunday 2nd July, Matchbox Cine and Trasho Biblio present Jimmy McDonough: In Conversation alongside Nicolas Winding Refn’s new restoration of If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?

This exclusive, online-only double bill marks the release of The Exotic Ones, McDonough’s epic new biography of The Ormond Family, 40 years in the making.

Exploitation film-makers Ron and June Ormond experienced a spiritual awakening after their private plane crashed on the way to a premiere. Turning their back on secular show business, they made a series of shocking, surreal religious pictures which made millions without ever being shown in an actual movie theatre. Their story has never been told – until now.

Still from the film If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? featuring middle-aged, grey-haired bespectacled man staring down the lens

Still from the film If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? featuring grinning, uniformed man brandishing a gun

If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? is the first of three “Baptist scare pictures” which director Ron Ormond made with firebrand preacher, Estus W Pirkle, and surely the most unsettling and outrageous. A feverish nightmare prediction of what “will” happen when Communism infects an American small town (in this case, Pirkle’s church setting of New Albany, Mississippi), it was never intended to be screened outside of churches and community centres. It has been restored from the only surviving master elements by Nicolas Winding Refn’s byNWR and Cinema Preservation Alliance’s Peter Conheim, so that it may finally reach a wider viewing audience.

Jimmy McDonough is the legendary author of The Ghastly One: The 42nd Street Netherworld of Director Andy Milligan and Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer as well as celebrated biographies of Neil Young, Tammy Wynette and Al Green. John Waters frequently cites Time Magazine-certified “masterpiece” The Ghastly One as one of his all-time favourites.

This will be the last book I write on exploitation film. Buy it. Or go to Hell!
Jimmy McDonough

Photo of coffee table book, THE EXOTIC ONES, half-removed from sleeve

June. Ron. Tim. Together they were the Ormond Organization, a Nashville mother-father-son trio who cranked out a wild bunch of movies, from Lash LaRue westerns to the stripper-gore-musical outrage The Exotic Ones, then finally… Baptist extravaganzas. The Ormonds plunged into every area of showbiz, from vaudeville to drive-in movies to Christian filmmaking. They did it all on a shoestring – by themselves, with no studio to back them.

Theirs was a glittery world like no other. Populated by inebriated cowboys … spook-show mentalists … non-acting country stars … UFO testifiers … men in gorilla suits … egocentric magicians … fire-breathing, mud-wrestling ex-strippers … sweaty preachers … rockabilly monsters … pint-sized evangelists. Not to mention a con artist or ten.

Forensic biographer Jimmy McDonough interviewed June Ormond extensively and she revealed things she told no other soul. June was the guiding force of the family, a woman who held her own in the cutthroat male-dominated world of low-budget independent film. Her commentary is hilarious, brutally honest and at times heartbreaking.

Collage of colourful spreads from THE EXOTIC ONES, featuring a mix of text stills and graphics. — Collage of spreads from *The Exotic Ones* (courtesy: FAB Press)

Our career-spanning conversation, hosted by Trasho Biblio’s Tommy McCormick, will be pre-recorded on 24th June, 2023. If you would like to pose a question to Jimmy, contact Trasho or Matchbox directly, or leave it in the comments.

The entire programme is presented with optional brand-new descriptive subtitles. If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? will also be presented for the first time anywhere with optional brand-new audio description, created by Matchbox Cinesub.

The exclusive, time-limited programme will be available on Matchbox Cine’s Eventive platform from Friday 30th June to Sunday 2nd July. Buy tickets/watch here.

Tickets, which include both film and In Conversation, are sold on a sliding scale, from 0 to £8. You decide what to pay, according to our sliding scale guide (here)

The Exotic Ones is available now from FAB Press, here.

From Hollywood To Heaven: The Lost And Saved Films Of The Ormond Family is available now from Powerhouse / Indicator here.

House of Psychotic Women UK Tour

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.

Full details of the tour and ticket links at makeitweird.co.uk

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

Case Study: Petrov’s Flu & Accessible Foreign Language Cinema

With support from BFI, Matchbox worked with Sovereign Films to make their recent release of Petrov’s Flu accessible to Deaf and Blind audiences

The number of “foreign-language” films released in the UK has risen more or less year-on-year in the last 20, from 96 in 2001 to 346 in 2019. Parasite‘s historic 2020 Oscar win (with Bong Joon-Ho’s widely reported exhortation to overcome the “one inch tall barrier of subtitles”), seemed to signal a seachange in general audiences’ acceptance of subtitled cinema. Netflix and social media have helped to standardise the sight of subtitles with mainstream audiences while, internationally, the idea of employing same-language subtitles to improve literacy has gained traction.

At the same time, non-English language films still represent a small fraction of the UK box office, and exhibitors coming out of a pandemic have to navigate an increasingly homogenised slate of US franchise blockbusters, dwindling resources and narrow margins for error. To succeed, non-English language films also have to engage with some deeply engrained assumptions and prejudices (on both sides of the box office desk) around subtitled screenings.

Sovereign’s theatrical poster for Petrov’s Flu

A subtitled screening, meanwhile, is not necessarily an accessible one. Just because a French film has subtitles, doesn’t mean audiences who generally rely upon descriptive subtitles (AKA captions, SDH or HoH) to enjoy cinema on equal terms will have anything like the same experience as a general audience.

I used to settle for watching films with English subtitles, and in the case of foreign language films, I would sit through the entire screening hoping that there wasn’t any English dialogue, and if there was, that I wouldn’t miss an essential plot point. It wasn’t until I started watching films with descriptive subtitles and attending captioned screenings that I realised how much I was missing out on, how much more information I was getting from descriptive labels, the presence of which drastically enhance my viewing experience and enjoyment. I was especially frustrated with the release of A Quiet Place, a groundbreaking film that spotlights deafness and sign language, as almost all of it was in English subtitles due to the characters’ use of sign language, so it was accessible for people who don’t know ASL. But it wasn’t accessible for Deaf audiences as there wasn’t any descriptive labels and there wasn’t English subtitles for the very few lines of English dialogue. The provision of descriptive subtitles makes my viewing experience an equal one, an experience that I don’t have to compromise on.
Charlotte Little, Access Consultant (Matchbox Cine)

Nevertheless, Deaf audiences are regularly excluded from non-English language cinema, whether that’s at physical screenings (where English language films are often, however understandably, given precedence in already niche slots), on VOD (where technical restrictions can mitigate full access measures, if not block them entirely) or on disc (often the last refuge for access). While dedicated programming strands and regular screening slots can ensure Deaf- or disability-focussed programming is accessible to audiences, the wide world of cinema is often frustratingly withheld.

The reasons are often complex, but the barriers to access usually can be delineated according to 1) budgetary restrictions 2) extremely tight schedules 3) a fundamental gap in knowledge and 4) perceived or real technical restrictions. We’ve found that Matchbox can be of use with all four of these elements, leaving the basic will to make improvements the final variable. Happily, most distributors and exhibitors do have that will, even if, due to some combination of the other variables, they’ve not been able to deliver accessible screenings.

Kirill Serebrennikov’s Russian-language Petrov’s Flu is the second project in an ongoing collaboration we’ve developed with one such, UK-based distributor, Sovereign Films. Beginning with Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Radu Jude, 2021), continuing through Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2021) and, most recently, Theo and the Metamorphosis (Damien Odoul, 2022), we’ve created descriptive subtitles and sometimes audio description for their releases – access materials that can then be used in various contexts – theatrical, VOD and/or disc. Sovereign’s releases are mostly non-English language (or have multiple audio languages, as is the case with Memoria). Our work with Sovereign, particularly on Petrov’s Flu (the release of which was supported by BFI’s Audience Fund, awarding funds from the National Lottery) is good model for how independent distributors can work with access providers to develop access materials.

A QUICK ASIDE ON TERMINOLOGY – we advocate for the term “descriptive subtitles” when discussing access materials made for films. There are essentially two categories of subtitles, and only one universally useful distinction. On one hand, you have “subtitles”, which contain only dialogue (whether it’s translated into English from another language, or simply transcribes English dialogue). On the other, you have “descriptive subtitles” which also contain descriptive elements such as sound effects [Petrov coughs], speech identifiers [Petrova] and music labels [Breezy accordion music]. Descriptive subtitles are also variously known as captions (open or closed), Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (SDH), Hard of Hearing (HoH). Part of the problem with “captions” is that it is often used interchangeably with subtitles, leading to confusion at every possible stage – in planning and discussing accessibility, managing film materials, advertising screenings, etc. We prefer “descriptive subtitles” because it’s clear, removes ambiguity and simply denotes what the file is, rather than who it’s supposedly for (bearing in mind the majority of viewers using subtitles are not Deaf, nor hard-of-hearing; they are also widely valued by viewers for whom English is not their first language and neurodivergent audience members). NB there are further subtleties, particularly regarding file formats and when discussing various different contexts, but the least confusing and most fundamental dichotomy is subtitles vs descriptive subtitles.

Screengrab of two subtitle files opened in TextEdit. Timecodes and dialogue are present on the left-hand file; Timecodes, dialogue and descriptive elements are present in the right-hand file. — *Petrov’s Flu* Subtitles (left) vs Descriptive Subtitles (right)

To illustrate the difference between subtitles and descriptive subtitles and to explain the inadequacies of a basic English subtitle file for access purposes, non-English language films are very useful. For example, the basic subtitle file for Petrov’s Flu (above, left), which translates all of the Russian dialogue (and all the Cyrillic text on-screen) into English, contains 1,841 subtitles. The descriptive subtitle file (above, right), which adds all the elements in order to make the film accessible, contains 2,285 subtitles, an increase of 19.4%. The intention is to give as equal an experience as possible, and those additional 444 subtitles are essential in that regard. To understand the potential shortfall, we only have to imagine a film with the last reel missing, or with 1/5 of the screen obscured throughout.

Sovereign engaged Matchbox to produce access materials (both descriptive subtitles and audio description) for the release of Petrov’s Flu. As is relatively typical, there was a short amount of time to produce those materials, so that they could be packaged with the theatrical DCP. Often, local distributors are given either pre-packaged DCPs, ready for screening, or versions of the film with their local language subtitles already burned-in. Distributors are faced with the choice to re-package the DCPs (provided to them by sales agents) at often significant cost (labs often charge excessively for each additional subtitle file), on top of the production of the access materials themselves. Access materials, which, it should be said, are not often packaged with the films when they are sold (which does make some amount of sense for international titles – a French film, for example, will sometimes be delivered with French descriptive subtitles but not English). Meanwhile, distributors’ delivery schedules are often extremely narrow – they may take delivery of a film just weeks before their DCP must be finalised for release, or even for a planned festival screening, meaning the access materials need created and approved in a very narrow window (and, with already narrow margins, it can be hard to justify the expense of creating a new DCP for a theatrical release if you’ve created one weeks or months earlier for a festival screening, but sans access materials because there wasn’t time yet to complete them).

Photograph from set of Petrov's Flu, with a sepia tint. Three men sit in back of van, one (bald) pours a drink. The cosy van is festooned with rugs, flowers and other decorative elements — *Filming* Petrov’s Flu *in St. Petersburg, Russia, Tuesday December 10, 2019. (Photo: Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times)*

Luckily, we had recourse to a “clean” version of Petrov’s Flu, with no burned-in subtitles. Sovereign also could give us access to various deliverables from the production, including a music cue sheet, which helped us to make full and accurate access materials. We then created a suite of files for use in various contexts – a full descriptive subtitles file, for use with the theatrical DCP (and any subsequent disc release) and a DS-only file, designed to work around the basic English subtitle file. The DS-only file removes some of the additional elements that clash with the basic file – for example speech identifiers, or sound effects that would otherwise be merged with the dialogue-only subtitles. (NB It’s possible to create a file that simply raises those clashing subtitles to the top of the screen – useful when making an accessible DCP from a video with burned-in subtitles – but most online contexts can’t support the requisite HTML code in the sidecar file, rendering them ineffective at best, at worst leaving the code visible to the viewer).

This latter is a necessarily compromised file, of diminished effectiveness, but it’s a necessary evil (for the moment), since many online platforms either can’t support multiple subtitle files (meaning the basic English file takes the only slot) or don’t support “sidecar” (read: separate, optional) subtitle files at all. This latter is the case for some VOD platforms which viewers commonly cast to their televisions – if subtitles are required, they must therefore be burned-in/hardcoded (a permanent part of the film’s image) and, again, the basic English file usually takes precedence.

In terms of audio description, it’s relatively uncommon for non-English languages films in theatrical distribution. Since AD scripts need to incorporate any on-screen text, including subtitles (which must be voiced along with the descriptions of visual information), AD is more likely to be produced against dubbed version of films. It means a film like Petrov’s Flu, as long and verbose as it is, presents a particular challenge. Dubbing an entire feature is still prohibitively expensive for an indepedent exhibitor, releasing into one market (a little more economical for Disney+ or Netflix, who coincidentally report that international audiences increasingly prefer dubbed films to subtitled ones). Truthfully, creating AD for Petrov’s Flu was a mammoth task for our scripter and our voicer, who are generally adept and well practiced at creating and delivering concise and effective descriptions. We can be confident, though, that we didn’t cut corners to deliver the file.

I’d love to see SDH subtitles become the norm on foreign films. It’s just good practice and I hope more distributors do this.
Will Mager (writer, director, producer)

We’ve been able to help Sovereign navigate all these potential complications to ensure their releases are as accessible as possible and to produce theatrical quality materials with very tight turnarounds. The key word their for us, for Sovereign and for audiences is “quality”. We’re determined that our subtitles help to create an equal experience for everyone potentially in attendance – bearing in mind that the Deaf audience itself isn’t monolithic, but encompasses people deaf from birth, those that have become deaf, hard-of-hearing people, those whose first or preferred language is BSL, etc – including a fully-hearing audience. Cinema is essentially immersive and communal and, rather than compartmentalise audiences, the hope is to bring them together.

That’s not possible with sub-par subtitles, or with unproved and unreliable technology that makes Deaf and/or disabled audiences the problem. As advocates as well as practioners, we’re focussed on making sure the materials we produce are the best quality and that they meet the expectations of the audience, rather than the bare minimum to qualify as access materials – e.g. lyrics are transcribed wherever necessary and possible and untranslated, non-English dialogue is transcribed wherever possible (if a film-maker has chosen not to translate non-English dialogue, instead of simply labelling [He speaks Spanish], if we’re able to, we’ll transcribe it, “Los subtítulos son geniales.”). As all good subtitlers do, we go the extra mile in our research to confirm spellings and phraseology, to identify needle drops and source official lyrics.

As with all our work, regardless of the context, the materials we make for Sovereign are made to the best professional quality, so audiences can be confident that their titles meet those standards while exhibitors can rely upon the materials to be present (and to present correctly). With the materials available – and crucially prepared for every context – audiences can begin to expect upon the provision being there without them asking for it.

Matchbox & Sovereign’s panel discussion on Petrov’s Flu and accessibility for non-English language films

Cinemas and other exhibitors can also make useful changes (while avoiding unfortunate mis-steps). Ensure your accessible screenings are listed and advertised prominently and correctly. Don’t lump simply subtitled screenings together with accessible screenings on your website’s “accessible” screenings page, or in your reporting – that means when you boast about the percentage of accessible screenings in your programme, it’ll be entirely accurate. Be confident and informed when engaging with your general audiences – challenge assumptions, including your own. Your general audiences may generally swerve “open-captioned” screenings, but that’s because they have the choice, and perhaps because they’ve had bad experiences of subtitled ones – they may even, as has been evidenced, wrongly believe open-captioned films screen with no sound. Educate staff, both customer-facing and behind the scenes of the value and requirements of accessibility, as well as the correct terminology, in order to avoid unnecessary barriers to access (such as when access materials are not requested from distributors, or if they are, they’re advertised incorrectly).

The truth is people will watch a film with subtitles in, even if they don’t realise it straight away. After all, the highest grossing movie of all time is Avatar, a film where over a third of its dialogue is in Na’Vi… which is subtitled.
Film Stories

There is a massive potential audience for accessible screenings of all stripes, but the main obstacles to developing it are consistency in quality and general availability. Audiences’ trust needs to be earned before they will reliably turn out for accessible screenings – and not just the (if they’re lucky) one a day, scheduled during work hours. Meanwhile, mainstream audiences are arguably largely untested in their tolerance for more accessible screenings. As practioners and advocates, all we can do is help to break down those barriers to access – all that remains is the will to finally sweep them away.

Sean Welsh

Petrov’s Flu will be released to VOD on Monday 27th June.

For more information, check sovereignfilms.co.uk, or follow Sovereign Films on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.

“A Quiet Man, eh?” CRIME WAVE’s original ending, on 16mm

Last month, we travelled to New York to screen the original ending of John Paizs’ Crime Wave for the first time in 35 years – from Paizs’ own 16mm print!

In December 2021, we took our Tales from Winnipeg programme to Brooklyn, NYC. We went there at the invitation of Spectacle Theater, the legendary microcinema/”goth bodega” situated in Williamsburg (see the 2020 roundtable we hosted with Caroline Golum, Isaac Hoff & Garrett Linn of Spectacle here). Originally presented online in August 2020 (everywhere except North America), the headliners of our programme are three features – Guy Maddin’s Cowards Bend the Knee (with Ela Orleans’ re-score), Dave Barber and Kevin Nikkel’s documentary Tales from the Winnipeg Film Group and John Paizs’ seminal Crime Wave, in its 2K restoration. We’ve screened Crime Wave many, many times, and because of that and because we love Spectacle so much, we were keen to do something particularly special. Thankfully, the stars aligned, spectacularly so (pun not intended). John Paizs allowed us to ship the original 16mm print of his film, unprojected since its fateful festival debut in 1985, from Winnipeg to New York. And, crucially, this particular print contained Crime Wave‘s original ending.

The story of Crime Wave‘s premiere – on Friday 13th September, 1985 – has taken on quasi-mythical status. After that “disastrous” first screening, the story often goes, distributors demanded Paizs reshoot the end of his debut feature, which he did, ensuring its status as the Great Canadian Cult Comedy. Truthfully, the version of the film screened then, at Toronto’s Festival of Festivals (precursor to TIFF), is the same one that led critic Jay Scott to proclaim, “If the great Canadian comedy ever gets made, John Paizs might be the one to make it.”

As far as distributor’s demands, John may ultimately have pre-empted them, but he didn’t even sign Crime Wave‘s ill-fated deal until the following year. The “disaster” that night in Toronto was a sound problem that brought the film’s projection to a screeching halt, lighting up the auditorium, just as the third act began. When the film resumed, the belly laughs of the preceding hour were gone, and the audience’s muted response convinced Paizs to do the unthinkable – return to Winnipeg to rewrite and re-shoot the entire final act of his debut feature, having long since exhausted its meagre budget (round about $67,000 Canadian).

Detail from the original, hand-typed *Crime Wave* screenplay, corresponding with the scene pictured above

The Crime Wave that you may well know and love – the best-known version of the film is still, as far as we’re concerned, criminally underappreciated – has a very distinctive third act. The film ascends into a rattling montage tracing the sharp rise and lonely fall of film-maker Steven Penny (Paizs himself), a frenzied crescendo that fulfils the promise of the first two acts by adrenalising all their wit and invention. Crime Wave goes out on a high, complete with deadpan musical coda as the credits roll. The original ending arrives at something like the same spot, narratively, but detours significantly into darker territory. As Jay Scott noted, elsewhere in that oft-quoted review, “the tone switches from mildly nuts and robustly funny to robustly nuts and mildly funny.” At the premiere, the sharpness of that tonal shift coincided perfectly with the 10-20 minute interruption. The comparatively subdued atmosphere in the room afterwards (and a smattering of early departures), alongside some caveated reviews, was enough to convince Paizs he needed to completely rethink the ending.

As the festival buzz dissipated over the next six months, Paizs regrouped in Winnipeg and determinedly reconstructed Crime Wave, his stubborn focus – arguably one of the hallmarks of his hometown cohort – on his own vision and on posterity. Paizs raised a further $10-15,000 and, with the support of his Winnipeg compatriates, who passed the hat around to support the endeavour, delivered the much-loved, “faster and funnier” final cut to premiere in Vancouver on 21st March, 1986. By some estimates, though, that half-year diversion was enough to leave Crime Wave in the wilderness for good. A vaunted distribution deal failed to deliver a theatrical release and, worse, left Paizs’ film in the rights quagmire that it remains in today.

Writer and programmer Geoff Pevere, an early champion of Paizs and Crime Wave responsible for its sight-unseen invite to Toronto, remembered the 16mm print only arriving on the day of the screening, with Paizs. “Later, I heard the director had actually picked up the just-completed print from the lab on the way to catch his plane.” So: struck, screened once and stored for 35 years – that’s the print we showed at Spectacle. When we asked after it, John offered to check some carefully kept 16mm cans, soon confirming some of the heretofore “mystery” reels contained the premiere cut – and not, we hasten to add, the “Director’s Cut”. If one thing’s clear, it’s that John Paizs made the film he wanted to make, though both versions belong on a beautiful boutique blu ray release. Meanwhile, Crime Wave‘s reputation grows, year on year, with every new viewing, hopefully towards the point Paizs’ “lost” classic can find its way home.

Sean Welsh

Our Crime Wave New York story in pictures

1 | We flew into New York on the evening of Thursday 9th December, and the next morning wandered up to recce the fabled goth bodega and take some jetlagged selfies. We’re big fans of Spectacle’s programming, so figured best to get it out of our system.

Photography of two packaged film prints sitting against wall, on pavement (sidewalk!)

White man wearing glasses and a hat and white woman wearing glasses and a hat pose in front of Anthology Film Archives, holding a film print

2 | Next day, we picked up the print. Our friends at Anthology Film Archives (who screened Crime Wave on 16mm back in 2014) helped us out by taking delivery of John’s print, sent direct from Winnipeg. Anthology’s Jed Rapfogel raised an eyebrow (justifiably) when he heard this was not only the first outing for the original cut in 35 years but quite likely the only extant print, and as-yet unscanned/unpreserved. Off we went to Spectacle to show it to people! #TeamLanglois

3 | Spectacle had hired a 16mm projector for the special event, and with it came projectionist extraordinaire, artist, film-maker and analogue afficionado Ian Burnley. With the requisite care and reverence (not to mention sense of circumstance), Ian unveiled the reel (actually, four reels – John sent the three original reels plus one with the “official” ending, just in case)…

Closed up of film reel, with writing on case: "CRIME WAVE REEL 3, *ORIGINAL ENDING"

Man holds films reel, around the edge a label reads "MATURE"

4 | ..and began to prepare them for screening (note John’s careful new notes and the original “MATURE” label). Ian also gave us some great recommendation for cinemas, art shows, galleries and noodles (we were glad to meet Ian).

Photograph of interior of Spectacle Theater, with image projected on screen. Woman wearing jumpsuit walks up aisle.

Photograph of interior of Spectacle Theater, facing towards entrance. Woman wearing jumpsuit walks up aisle.

5 | We sat down with Spectacle’s Caroline Golum to preview the reel ahead of the screening, making sure the set-up worked and John hadn’t pranked us by sending us footage of a Winnipeg family wedding. He hadn’t!

Photograph of man posing with A-board, with writing, CRIME WAVE, and illustration of side of house, in street outside Spectacle Theater

Photograph of woman posing with A-board, with writing, CRIME WAVE, and illustration of side of house, in street outside Spectacle Theater

6 | All that was left was to panickedly chalk up the A-board, pose for posterity (that’s Spectacle’s Elias ZX on the left there, Megan in the middle), welcome the sold-out audience and wait for the reviews…

Anyhow, got to see John Paizs own 16mm print of Crime Wave with its original ending and it ruled. pic.twitter.com/rsGA6Nwodm
— 50 Jenna Ipcar Fans Can’t Be Wrong! (@AgreeableCar) December 11, 2021

Crime Wave’s 2K restoration screens in Spectacle’s Best of 2021 line-up on Saturday, 8th January at 7:30pm EST and Thursday 27th January at 10pm EST, tickets here. NB this is not the version with the original ending (just the one we know and love).

Thanks to Elias ZX, Caroline Golum and volunteers at Spectacle Theater, Monica at Winnipeg Film Group, Jed Rapfogel at Anthology Film Archives, Ian Burnley and Herb Shellenberger for helping to facilitate this series. And, of course, to John Paizs.

You can read more about Crime Wave in our Tales from Winnipeg zine and in Jonathan Ball’s excellent book, John Paizs’s Crime Wave.

If you’re interested in screening any part of our Tales from Winnipeg programme, please feel free to drop us a line: sean@matchboxcineclub.com.

“Jesus Christ, Dirty Harry & Billy the Kid walk into a bar…”

Naoto Yamakawa’s cult classic The New Morning of Billy the Kid “conjures together a motley crew of Eastern and Western archetypes”. For our online screening, we made a handy primer…

To call Naoto Yamakawa’s The New Morning of Billy The Kid an unconventional Western would be to severely downplay the stramash of archetypes Yamakawa knowingly deploys in his dreamlike film. From the title, combining references to Bob Dylan’s New Morning (1970) and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Sam Peckinpah, 1973) which Dylan scored and starred in, the film pulls together multiple threads of cultural references from all directions. We’ve assembed this (incomplete!) primer to aid your viewing of our online programme, which runs 3rd-5th December 2021. Images courtesy of Naoto Yamakawa.

Billy the Kid aka Henry McCarty, William H Bonney (1859-1881) | An orphan at 15, dead at 21, Billy the Kid found fame as a murderous outlaw and gunfighter of the American Old West. A pop culture figure for over 100 years, he’s appeared in numerous books, comics, films, stage shows, songs and video games. Played by Hiroshi Mikami.

Black and white photography: Two men, a sailor and a police detective, sit at a table on a balcony. The sailor looks down through binoculars, the detective smokes a cigarette. — **Harry Callahan (Yoshio Harada)**, right, in *The New Morning of Billy the Kid*

Harry Callahan (Created 1971) | Debuting in Don Siegel’s neo-noir Dirty Harry, Inspector Harold Francis Callahan is a fictional character and protagonist of a five-film series concluding with 1988’s The Dead Pool. Played by Yoshio Harada.

Marx-Engels (Karl Marx, 1818-1883; Friedrich Engels, 1820-1895) | German philosophers and co-authors of The Communist Manifesto. Marx’ tomb bears the inscription, “Workers of all lands unite”. The latter’s motto was reportedly, “Take it easy.” Played by Rokkô Toura.

Monument Valley | Monument Valley, located on the Navajo Nation within Arizona and Utah, has been featured in many forms of media since the 1930s, most famously the ten films John Ford made with John Wayne, including Stagecoach (1939), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and The Searchers (1956).

Genichiro Takahashi (1951-) | Novelist and co-writer of The New Morning of Billy the Kid. The film draws upon his written works Sayonara, Gangsters (1982), Over the Rainbow (1984) and John Lennon vs The Martians (1985), among others. His oeuvre draws inspiration equally from low- and high-brow culture. Played by Genichiro Takahashi.

Black and white photography: Three men stand closely together in a bar: a sailor, a bandit and a soldier. — **Harimau** (**Junichi Hirata**), centre, in *The New Morning of Billy the Kid*

Harimau aka Tani Yutaka (1911-1942) | Yutaka was a bandit known as Harimau (“Tiger” in Malay), attacking Chinese gangs and British officers and giving away what he looted to the poor, making him a local hero in Malaya, now Malaysia. He was also a secret agent for the Imperial Japanese Army, sabotaging the British war effort in the run up to World War II. Played by Junichi Hirata.

Jesus Christ (c 4 BC-30/33) | Son of God. Played by Akifumi Yamaguchi.

Jishu Eiga | Japanese phrase to describe DIY or self-made films, usually with no budget, funded and produced outside of the commercial industry. Prominent directors Sôgo Ishii, Naomi Kawase, Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Shinya Tsukamoto cut their teeth with jishu eiga films.

Sasaki Kojirō (1575-1612) | Prominent Japanese swordsman and long-time rival of Miyamoto Musashi, who defeated him in a legendary duel. Played by Makoto Ayukawa.

Mitsuharu Kaneko (1895-1975) | Japanese poet known as an anti-establishment figure, who during the Second World War deliberately made his son ill so he would not be drafted.

Black and white photography: A swordsman smiles against a cloudy sky — **Miyamoto Musashi (Takashi Naito)** in *The New Morning of Billy the Kid*

Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645) | Japanese swordsman, philosopher, strategist, writer and rōnin. Miyamoto became renowned through stories of his unique double-bladed swordsmanship and undefeated record in his 61 duels. Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) drew inspiration from Miyamoto for Seiji Miyaguchi’s character Kyūzō. Played by Takashi Naito.

New Morning (1970) | The 11th studio album by Bob Dylan, of which the original Rolling Stone reviewer said, “I’ve never heard Dylan sounding so outrageously happy before.”

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) | Revisionist Western directed by Sam Peckinpah, starring (in a supporting role as “Alias”) and scored by Bob Dylan. Billy the Kid was played by Kris Kristofferson, who said of his director, “One of Sam Peckinpah’s regular stunt men put it very well. He said, ‘Sam likes to be surrounded by chaos.'”

Composite image of magazine cuttings: a Photograph of a director holding a script in front of an actor dressed as a cowboy; an excerpt from an article*; a credit: "TONY RAYNS"

*"Beyond its inevitable ration of new British TV-financed features, the festival offered three non-British world premieres, and it seemed characteristic of Edinburgh that no great drums were beaten for any of them. Yamakawa Naoto's The New Morning of Billy the Kid, from Japan, is a brilliantly sustained comedy that conjures together a motley crew of Eastern and Western archetypes and has them shoot it out in the ultimate saloon gunfight. Almost entirely studio-shot, it uses the resources of the sound-stage with a mastery to compare with the heyday of the 1930s, but to glitteringly modernist ends." — *The New Morning of Billy the Kid* featured in Tony Rayns’ coverage of Edinburgh festival for Sight and Sound (London, Vol 55, Iss. 4, Fall 1986, p222)

Tony Rayns (1948-) | A writer, curator, programer and tireless champion of film, one of Mr Rayns’ key specialisations is Asian cinema. Rayns was an early champion of Yamakawa’s films and one of the only writers to celebrate his work from the outset. Rayns was also involved in the creation of the film’s original English subtitles (since lost), in collaboration with Director Yamakawa, and now has very graciously worked on our 2021 subtitles.

Sgt Sanders (Created 1962) | Sgt “Chip” Saunders, played by Vic Morrow, was the co-lead character in Combat!, a US TV show (1962-1967). The show depicted the lives of a US platoon fighting its way across Europe during World War II. Played by Zenpaku Kato.

Popeye & Olive Oyl (Created 1929; 1919) | Characters of Thimble Theatre, later Popeye, comic strips. Olive Oyl was a main character for 10 years before Popeye’s 1929 appearance, sequentially becoming his girlfriend. Both are able to gain superhuman strength from eating spinach. Played by Katsuhiko Hibino and Kyoko Endoh.

Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982) | Soviet politician who led the Soviet Union as General Secretary of the governing Communist Party and as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. His 18-year term as general secretary was second only to Joseph Stalin’s in duration. Played by Katsumi Asaba.

104 (1953-2015) | Japanese telephone directory enquiries number. Played by Akio Ishii.

177 | Japanese telephone weather service, dial to hear the weather forecast for the upcoming three days. Played by Hozumi Goda.

Black and white photograph: A young woman sits in a chair, looking off to the right-hand side. — **Charlotte Rampling** (**Kimie Shingyoji**) in *The New Morning of Billy the Kid*

Charlotte Rampling (1963-) | English actress and model, known for her work in European arthouse films in English, French, and Italian. Played by Kimie Shingyoji.

Bruce Springsteen (1949-) | American singer, songwriter, and musician with over twenty studio albums. Played by Masayuki Shionoya.

Tatum O’Neal (1963-) | American actress who is the youngest person to ever win a competitive Academy Award, winning at age 10 for her performance as Addie Loggins in Paper Moon (Peter Bogdanovich, 1973) opposite her father, Ryan O’Neal. Played by Aura Lani.

Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 (Published 1969) | A science fiction infused anti-war novel, articulating Vonnegut’s experiences as an American serviceman in World War II through protagonist Billy Pilgrim. Namesake of Master’s bar.

Naoto Yamakawa (1957-) | Film director and professor at the Department of Imaging Art, Tokyo Polytechnic University. Yamakawa began to create his own films after becoming a member of the Cinema Research Society while studying at Waseda University.

Zelda (Active 1979–1996) | One of Japan’s first all-girl bands, playing new wave, punk, pop, post-punk, and later, reggae. Played by band members Sachiho Kojima , Sayoko Takahashi, Tomie Ishihara and Ako Ozawa.

The New Morning of Billy the Kid is available to watch worldwide from 3rd December to 5th December 2021 only, via Matchbox Cine’s online platform.

The New Morning of Billy the Kid is presented by Matchbox Cine as part of BFI’s Japan 2021: Over 100 years of Japanese Cinema, a UK-wide film season supported by National Lottery and BFI Film Audience Network. bfijapan.co.uk

A Super Serious Comical Movie of New and Amusing Style

Matchbox Cine is bringing Naoto Yamakawa’s cult classic The New Morning of Billy the Kid back to western audiences, in a limited online presentation with all-new translated subtitles, December 3rd-5th, 2021.

Matchbox Cine is bringing Naoto Yamakawa’s cult classic The New Morning of Billy the Kid (ビリィ★ザ★キッドの新しい夜明け, 1986) back to western audiences, in a limited online presentation, December 3rd-5th, 2021. The film has not been available anywhere with English subtitles, and hasn’t screened in the west at all, since its original, lauded festival run. This event marks its 35th anniversary with an all-new English translation.

In the film, the titular anti-hero takes a job at the Slaughterhouse Saloon, “an arena of dreams where characters, images and situations from popular culture are transmitted into something entirely new.” (Tony Rayns) There, he encounters dish-washer Marx Engels, femme-fatale Sharlotte Rampling (sic) and a range of cultural figures in new guises, including Harry Callahan, Bruce Springsteen and Jesus.

The programme will screen exclusively on Matchbox Cine’s online platform, powered by Eventive. Rounding out the programme are two Yamakawa shorts based on Haruki Murakami short stories, Attack on a Bakery (1982) and A Girl, She is 100% (1983), also with new English translations.

The entire programme features Descriptive Subtitles/SDH and optional Audio Description, to ensure the films are accessible to as many people as possible. Tickets are priced on a sliding scale, so viewers decide what to pay, based on their means, with reference to a tiered sliding scale guide, Free-£8.

The programme is presented by Matchbox Cine as part of BFI’s Japan 2021: Over 100 years of Japanese Cinema, a UK-wide film season supported by National Lottery and BFI Film Audience Network. bfijapan.co.uk

Shelf Life + Q&A

Matchbox return with the never-released, undiscovered final feature film from legendary director Paul Bartel!

We’re back, with our first ever hybrid event! SHELF LIFE (Paul Bartel, 1993) + Pre-recorded Cast Q&A with O-Lan Jones, Andrea Stein, Jim Turner and filmmaker Alex Mechanik is Matchbox’s first screening since January 2020.

We have a very limited capacity physical event at Cube Microplex, Bristol, 7pm on Friday 27/08 and an internationally-available, unlimited-availability online version via Eventive, from 7pm Friday 27/08 – Sunday 29/08. Attendees of the physical event will also get access to the online version, and a copy of our print publication. The programme includes a Paul Bartel trailer reel, new cast introductions and a vintage interview with Paul Bartel. The physical event will be open captioned with our new cast-approved descriptive subtitles and the online programme will have optional descriptive subtitles and brand-new audio description on the film only.

TICKETS: matchboxcine.eventive.org

SYNOPSIS: Tina, Pam, and Scotty are taken down into Mom and Dad’s well-stocked bomb shelter when Kennedy is assassinated in 1963…and they never come out. Thirty years later, Mom and Dad are a long-dead ‘bag of bones’ and the now-grown kids have created a life for themselves based on remnants from the ’60s, intermittent output from the TV and their wild imaginations.

BACKGROUND: Shelf Life was conceived and written by O-Lan Jones, Andrea Stein and Jim Turner as a result of their rumination on what must become of people boxed in tiny spaces for long, long periods of time. Director Paul Bartel (Eating Raoul, Death Race 2000, Lust in the Dust) saw the closing night performance of the play in 1992 and within six weeks they had begun shooting the film, complete with a fully fabricated fallout shelter on the stages of CFI in Hollywood. Despite a strong festival run and positive reviews, Shelf Life remained unreleased and never found the audience it deserved. After decades underground, the last remaining 35mm print was uncovered at the film archive of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and digitally restored – this is the UK premiere!

Q&A: This will be recorded in advance, partly to enable us to make it accessible, with quality subtitles. We record on 14/08, and you can pose questions any time between now and then via Slido: bit.ly/ShelfSlido

ZINE: We’re producing a new zine to accompany the event, with new artwork from Calvin Halliday and new responses to Shelf Life from emerging writers, including Logan Kenny. This will be free to all ticket holders and available to purchase separately.

TICKETS: Both physical and online events are priced on a sliding scale: you decide what to pay (£0-£8), with reference to our guide: bit.ly/matchboxscale

ACCESS: The screening will have brand-new, cast-approved descriptive subtitles, created by Matchbox Cinesub. The online version of the event will have optional descriptive subtitles for the entire programme and optional, brand-new audio description for the film. NB Cube Microplex is not wheelchair accessible.

VENUE + SOCIAL DISTANCING: Attendees will be required to wear a mask. We have limited seating to allow for social distancing – two seats between each set and every other row unsold. NB we are adhering to the advice of the UK Government but we also reserve the right to exercise our own judgement, should we feel the event is unsafe to deliver. In the case of cancellation, refunds will be issued automatically. NB Cube Microplex is not wheelchair accessible.

Part of Film Feels Hopeful, a UK-wide cinema season, supported by the National Lottery and BFI Film Audience Network. Explore all films and events at filmfeels.co.uk.

Dave Barber RIP

We were very sad to hear this week that Winnipeg Film Group‘s legendary Dave Barber has passed away. We never had the chance to meet Dave in real life, but his documentary Tales from the Winnipeg Film Group featured in our Tales from Winnipeg online programme last year and we were delighted to have his participation in the event. His enthusiasm for WFG, the film-makers and their work was evident and we enjoyed and valued the back and forth we had with Dave before the event and afterwards.

We were also delighted when Dave agreed to write an article on WFG and his documentary for our accompanying zine, which we are publishing online for the first time, below. Our post-screening Q&A with Dave and co-director Kevin Nikkel is also embedded after the article. Winnipeg Film Group are accepting donations in efforts to establish a filmmaking fund in Dave’s name. Donations can be made here.

When I started working at the Winnipeg Film Group in 1983, little did I realise what I was getting into. Hired on to organise a film screening programme called the Cinematheque, I had no idea that I would be a front row witness to so much great, subversive original filmmaking. This nonprofit collective of independent filmmakers had just moved from an old historic block called the Bate Building in downtown Winnipeg into a red brick home called the “Kelly House”, first built in the 1880s.

It was bare bones. I had no chair and no lamp, so I brought them from home along with my dad’s typewriter. My office was upstairs on the second floor with a moose head on the wall and an old fridge. It didn’t take me long to realise that many filmmakers were outlaws at heart, completely dedicated to creating films and pushing everything else out of the way. They would stop at nothing to realise their vision. More than once over the years, a filmmaker would ask if they could grab a prop that was hanging on the wall or in the corner of the room. My chair wound up in a science fiction short. My typewriter wound up in John Paizs’s Crime Wave. Somebody borrowed the moose head and we never saw it again. Our newsletter was christened The Moose.

Dave Barber in *Barber Gull Rub* (Matthew Rankin, 2008)

In the next 35 years I witnessed some of the best independent filmmaking in the world, survived endless stormy personality disputes, staff turnovers, a bleeding ulcer (a near nervous breakdown) two basement office floods, a revolution in the technology of making, distributing and exhibition of movies, and now a pandemic. In some ways, it was a miracle the organisation survived…deficits and staff turnover prompted much soul searching and fund raising. But those that took the high road always pulled the organisation out of the fire.

The Winnipeg Film Group was formed in 1974 by a collective of independent filmmakers who had a dream. To create a place where they could get filmmaking equipment to rent for cheap. They received a grant from the national arts funding body the Canada Council and, with this seed money, the organisation grew. They bought more and better 16mm filmmaking equipment. With the rise in filmmaking activity, there were more films on the shelf and an increasingly important distribution department. Many films went on to win awards and accolades at film festivals around the world. John Paizs’s wildly irreverent feature Crime Wave put the organisation on the map. Nobody had ever seen anything like this before.

Dave Barber and Kevin Nikkel (*photo: Leif Norman*)

I spoke to a filmmaker in Chicago so excited by the scene he heard that was happening in Winnipeg that he wanted to move here and make films. Another woman actually did show up but after ten days of thirty-five-below weather she left town and said, “You people are all crazy.” And she’s right. A crazy obsession is what drives filmmakers to create films in Winnipeg – long cold winter nights and a city far from major centres of influence has led to a body of great artistic work that has won awards at film festivals around the world. What is it about Winnipeg? This sleepy prairie town with a population of just over 700,000 is in the middle of nowhere. A strong visual arts scene, progressive arts council funding and endless cold winters all fuel the seeds of creativity.

When the Winnipeg Film Group moved yet again in 1986 into the Artspace Building, this time they had an equipment room much larger than the broom closet at Kelly House and a large empty space which became a studio. (re-named The Black Lodge) Hundreds of films have been shot in that space. If you set up a camera on a pedestal and filmed the room in stop motion over the years you would see a blur of sets being built and dismantled including a locomotive train for Guy Maddin’s Odilon Redon.

New emerging filmmakers walk in the door all the time. Every six years, there are radical changes in what filmmakers are creating. More recently there is a rise of the Indigenous Filmmakers Association and many significant women filmmakers creating great new work nurtured by the Winnipeg Film Group commission program Mosaic Women’s project.

Kevin Nikkel and I faced a challenging task in making this documentary Tales From the Winnipeg Film Group. For years, many filmmakers talked about creating a documentary about the organisation but the idea was too daunting. How do you tell 40 years of history with its endless sea of changes?

Kevin Nikkel and Dave Barber (*photo: Leif Norman*)

What is the story? Is there any archival footage or photographs? Who should you interview? In many ways, the Winnipeg Film Group is like the great Kurosawa movie Rashomon. Everyone sees their own version of the truth. We received an invaluable commissioning grant from TV producer Cam Bennett in the MTS Stories from Home and drew up a list of over 100 filmmakers, former staff and board members. Kevin travelled to Los Angeles, London, England and Washington, DC with his family and, while there, interviewed some filmmakers who had moved away. We drew a graph chart on the wall and listed high points in WFG history. The birth of the group, from discussions at the Film Symposium at the University of Manitoba. The move into the Kelly House at 88 Adelaide Street. The endless wrangling over the direction of the group. The rise of various filmmaking movements. Some people didn’t want to be interviewed and some were just way too busy making films. It was very tough finding archival footage and photographs. A visiting German filmmaker Sissy Schneider made a great short documentary film in the 1990s called Guys without an Attitude and generously allowed us to include a short except. Another German filmmaker, Alexander Bohr, made a documentary on Canadian filmmakers in 1992 and allowed us to use part of a segment on the Winnipeg Film Group shot inside our production offices in the Artspace Building.

Cam generously allowed us an extension on the deadline to do more research and interview more people. But the clock was ticking and we soon realised we had to stop as the funding strand was collapsing. We wrestled hard in the editing room and the tone of the film changed direction several times. But the filmmaking continued. And it always will. Because it is all that matters.

Dave Barber

Winnipeg Film Group are accepting donations in efforts to establish a filmmaking fund in Dave’s name. Donations can be made here. You can read WFG’s tribute to Dave here.

The Three Worlds of Nick

We’re teaming up with Glasgow Short Film Festival again to screen a trilogy of incredible shorts from Crime Wave director John Paizs – in one feature length programme, as originally intended

40 years ago, in January 1981, cult Canadian auteur John Paizs debuted his seminal short, Springtime in Greenland. His seventh, it was the opening salvo of an intended trilogy paving the way for Paizs’ crowning achievement, his 1985 feature debut Crime Wave. The loosely connected sequence, completed with Oak, Ivy & Dead Elms (1982) and The International Style (1984) stars writer/director Paizs himself as Nick, the mute protagonist, always deadpan if not strictly impassive, the inscrutable centre of a highly stylised world, inspired equally by Disney and Devo.

Conceived as three pieces of a whole, though rarely screened together, The Three Worlds of Nick developed the style formally established by Paizs with 1980’s The Obsession of Billy Botski. In that short, Paizs placed his titular character amongst the “controlled artificiality” of classical Hollywood, mixing the highly constructed sound design of vintage radio dramas with the knowing, pop punch of New Wave music. Indeed, Paizs wanted his films to be “shorter, snappier, brighter and edgier,” envisaging them as a cinematic counterpart to the music of Devo, The B-52s and Elvis Costello. In The Three Worlds of Nick, Paizs worked towards that goal with the wit and poise later celebrated in the work of Roy Andersson and something of the compromised sincerity of Blue Velvet-era Lynch.

Paizs’ “Silent Man” figure, who would find his apotheosis in Crime Wave’s Steven Penny, was key to that development. While Botski had been merely laconic, Nick is entirely silent, a steadfast counterpoint to his frequently grandiloquent friends and antagonists. The self-casting was expedient, since Paizs’ films were made on a shoestring, with a non-professional cast and crew (the modest budgets primarily went to film stock and processing). It’s also emblematic of the inventiveness permeating the three shorts, which make a distinct virtue of Paizs’ lack of faith in his own oratorical prowess, while allowing him frequent opportunities to flirt, poker-faced, with his camera’s objectifying gaze.

Sean Welsh

Kathleen Driscoll as Carmel Frosst in The International Style

DIRECTOR’S NOTE

The Three Worlds of Nick followed after my short film The Obsession of Billy Botski. After Botski, I very much wanted to have a go at a feature but was daunted by the scale of it, a challenge I overcame by conceiving of one in three more easily fundable and doable parts. In order to give the three parts unity, I created the silent man Nick character (to be played by me), who would appear in each. The three storylines for the three parts — or worlds — came out very different from one another, going from semi-autobiography in Springtime in Greenland to escapist fantasy in The International Style, with a stop in between at college in Oak, Ivy and other Dead Elms for Nick to possibly learn a thing or three from a charismatic old WASP establishment student on campus and his right wing politics. All in all, The Three Worlds of Nick offered at the time of its completion, in 1983, and still offers today I believe, a completely unique movie watching experience. One that I guarantee still holds something special for every dedicated cineaste.

John Paizs

The Three Worlds of Nick streams live at 20.30 on Saturday 27 March, then is available to view on demand until the GSFF hub closes at midnight on Sunday 28 March. All three films feature brand-new, director-approved descriptive subtitles, produced by Matchbox Cinesub. More information can be found here.