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

The story of the world’s wildest cinema as told by its audience of self-described weirdos and misfits.

  • Director

    Jane Giles, Ali Catterall

  • UK 2023. 96min

  • Digital

  • Certificate

    18

  • A BFI release

Fasten your seatbelts for the return of the homegrown hit of this year’s LFF, featuring John Waters along with John Akomfrah, Adam Buxton, Caroline Catz, Matt Johnson, Isaac Julien, Beeban Kidron, Stewart Lee, Peter Strickland, Ben Wheatley, Jah Wobble and many more. Archive footage, eye-popping movie clips, acid-crazed animation and some famous names combine to tell the story of London’s infamous, influential Scala cinema, in a film dedicated to evoking the true spirit of the place and what it felt like to be in the audience there. With its cracked marble floors, resident cats and mysterious, extrasensory rumblings, the Scala was both a magic place and a refuge from Britain during the Thatcher years. Hilarious, irreverent, and ultimately heart-breaking, with a fabulous original score by Barry Adamson, SCALA!!! is more than mere nostalgia; it’s an X-rated love letter and a universal shout-out to the power of cinema to inspire impressionable young minds and create a sense of community for outsiders – a place where everyone is welcome.

Jason Wood, Season Curator

Audio Description available.

The screening on Sat 27 Jan 17:55 Studio will be presented with subtitles including descriptions of non-dialogue audio.

Contains strong language, depictions of drug use, references to suicide and images of explicit sex.

See our Scala season.

Also available on BFI Player