Date/Time
Date(s) - 30/08/2025
19:30 - 21:15
Location
Electric Palace cinema, 39a High Street, Hastings TN34 3ER
Scala!!!
Or the Incredibly Strange Rise and Fall of the World’s Wildest Cinema and How It Influenced a Mixed-up Generation of Weirdos and Misfits. Back by popular demand!
Director: Ali Catterall and Jane Giles
96 mins / 2023 / UK
We’ve put it on again due to popular demand!
Heartfelt big screen documentary about the riotous inside story of the infamous sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll repertory cinema which inspired a generation during Britain’s turbulent Thatcher years. The cinema was housed in a wonderfully stately building with a cupola in London’s scuzzy and pre-gentrified King’s Cross between 1981 and 1993; the building in fact now survives and thrives as a nightclub.
The Scala also became legendary for its wonderful monthly poster-style foldout sheets advertising the forthcoming attractions which were sexier and more exciting than the earnest booklets in other cinemas; it became a movie theatre with the excitement of a 24/7 punk festival, not a college of further education. And this was the pre-Google, pre-YouTube age, when simply finding out about the existence of films, never mind actually seeing them, was very difficult.
Who you’ll see in the film: John Waters, Cathi Unsworth, James O’Brien, Mary Harron, John Akomfrah, Ben Wheatley, Isaac Julian, Caroline Catz, Stewart Lee, Adam Buxton, Peter Strickland, Thurston Moore, and Jah Wobble.
Part of National Cinema Days Weekend celebrating and suppporting communal film watching and independent cinemas in August!
This film is F-Rated. The F-Rating is applied to all films which are directed by women and/or written by women. Find out more about F-Rating.
Book now: https://www.electricpalacecinema.com/whats-on/scala
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