Picture this:

 

From a temporary WW1 storehouse for airplane parts—bi-plane wings, rabbit ear periscope binoculars, cockpit furniture—to a 1,000-capacity auditorium with a 20-piece orchestra, the Picture Palace in King’s Cross, London, has a storied past. By 1972, it became a leather-boy hotspot and a venue for the feral groove of Iggy Pop. In 1981, the building returned to its roots as a cinema—the Scala—opening with King Kong (1936). From then on, it presented a program of eye-popping X-rated gore, underrated 1950s sci-fi, subversively smutty flicks, and films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and David Lynch. The Scala built an incomparable reputation for unruly fun until its demise in 1993, partly due to its illegal screening of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange.

 

In 2019, my visit to Nova Bioskopa Zvezda, a legendary squatted cinema in Belgrade, Serbia, grew out of another project: the shared advocacy for ARTA Cinema in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, alongside director Wim Wenders.

I envisioned a zigzag journey across Europe, possibly traveling in Tyszko's disintegrating London Taxi, visiting overlooked, perhaps semi-abandoned cinemas, and 'samizdat' screening venues. During my stop-off in Belgrade, I met Serbian film director Mina Djukic and film actor Vladimir Gvojic, both dedicated advocates for Zvezda. We discussed many ideas, including the possibility of twinning Zvezda with a London cinema. Unfortunately, COVID-19 and subsequent lockdowns skewered those plans.

 

Fast forward to 2023: the documentary SCALA!!!, directed by its former programmer Jane Giles and writer-filmmaker Ali Catterall, was released. The film mined the untapped exuberance of a new generation of cinephiles, misfits, and the politically disenchanted. Screenings at the BFI London, Metrograph in New York, Athens, Los Angeles, and numerous UK off-circuit film clubs reignited interest in the Scala’s legacy.

 

Inspired, I decided to revisit the project, this time with my friend and frequent collaborator Simon Tyszko. A multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans conceptual art, experimental sound works, and radio broadcasting, Simon’s work has often shattered conventional boundaries. His pieces, often surreal and phantasmagoric, explore themes of memory, identity, and technology. Together, we aimed to make the Scala-Zvezda connection happen—this time with the added inclusion of Tyszko’s hauntingly beautiful experimetal short film, Sound 35,  as well as a work from linguist, writer, and filmmaker Anna Thew’s L.F.M.C. 16mm Demolition Film.

 

In early October, I called John Hopper, a former Scala manager, shortly before his death from cancer. During our brief conversation, Hopper described his morphine-induced hallucinations: “frightening black dots, smiling cherubs,” and indecipherable Cyrillic text projected in front of his eyes. Taking Hopper’s “almost last words” as a symbolic thumbs-up, the project accelerated. Exchanges began between Simon, Vlad, and Serbian collaborators about subtitles and the phonetic complexities of Cyrillic text.

 

The Scala’s indelible influence on those who sat in its electrifying “electric chairs” became increasingly clear. Everything—from Jane Giles’s exquisitely explosive programming to the cinema’s sex-emporium seedy lighting—proved the Scala’s unique magic. It was obvious: SCALA!!! had to be screened at Zvezda to mark its 10th year of occupation. After all, Zvezda was still getting on with the job of showing films. By twinning these two cinemas—each with its own countercultural history, separated by 2,300 kilometers and four decades—we could honor their shared spirit.

 

In Belgrade, the legacy is still alive. After all, this is the city where Nikola Tesla first captured the “shadowgraph.” Two cities, two time zones, one shared reverie at 24 frames per second.

 

At Zvezda? It’s still on tap.

 

David Ellis Nov 2024