"How am I going to sell it?" RADIANT CIRCUS presents MATINEE at Birkbeck Cinema (21 MAY 18:00).
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“How am I going to sell it?” RADIANT CIRCUS presents MATINEE (21 MAY)

Joining forces with our friends at Birkbeck Film, Media & Cultural Studies, RADIANT CIRCUS invites you to talk about our work, discuss how we make independent movies matter at a time of crisis, & watch Joe Dante’s MATINEE together.

"How am I going to sell it?" RADIANT CIRCUS presents MATINEE at Birkbeck Cinema (21 MAY 18:00).

By RADIANT CIRCUS

Twitter @radiantcircus | Instagram @radiantcircus

We’ve been building an alternative cinema guide for London since 2017. RADIANT CIRCUS started as a result of audience activism, producing weekly event listings in the absence of reliable information from the industry. In the process of putting everything together (that’s involved a hell of a lot of clicking, cutting & pasting…), we have also started to document alternative screen culture across Greater London, from anarchic community collectives to freelance film promoters, single-screen venues and multi-platform independents.

Covering everything from red carpet film festivals to site-specific community pop-ups, RADIANT CIRCUS lists approximately 200 events each week, making it the only comprehensive guide to London’s DIY, independent and alternative movie nights, film events and gallery screenings.

Join us in conversation with Dorota Ostrowska (Senior Lecturer in Film & Modern Media) to talk about the site’s development and discuss “independent exhibition at a time of crisis” as we draw parallels between classic exploitation cinema and the tactics used by independent film promoters across London today.

The evening will conclude with a screening of Joe Dante’s rather wonderful 1993 film, MATINEE.

MATINEE (d. Joe Dante, 1993/USA, 99mins)

The country is on red alert. People are already scared.
Exactly! What a perfect time to open a new horror movie.

Amidst the turmoil of geopolitical crisis and the stockpiling of supermarket goods, an insecure film industry is encountering an existential threat from Pay TV and the challenge of seducing jaded audiences back into movie theatres. Joe Dante’s keenly nostalgic questioning of the role movie-going plays in all our lives couldn’t be more relevant. And it’s set in 1962. That’s ‘history’ for you.

*Joe Dante in “Paranoia In Ant Vision”, a discussion about the making of MATINEE (1993) on Arrow Video’s 2016 Blu-Ray release, the version that will be projected this evening.

“How am I going to sell it?” London’s alternative cinema guide RADIANT CIRCUS presents MATINEE at Birkbeck Cinema (21 MAY 18:00 – FREE!).


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RADIANT CIRCUS is supported by readers’ monthly subscriptions, which start at just £2.99/month. Subscribers get our listings emailed directly as well as other great rewards. With enough subscribers backing us, we will be able to: 1) establish RADIANT CIRCUS as a permanent resource; 2) fund a full site rebuild to make our listings more social and searchable; and, 3) stage free events for subscribers as our way of saying a huge thank you! Our target? One thousand passionate film fans sharing what they love so that many more can discover it. Subscribe at patreon.com/radiantcircus

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*THE SMALL PRINT: As accurate as we could make it. Apologies for any errors. Updates & corrections will be made to the online version. Event dates/times are subject to change by the venue/organiser. We try to only list events you can book for at the time of posting: however, some events may still be sold out. Please click quickly! We don’t filter by age/certification: all readers & subscribers should be 18+.