There was a time when cinemas were temples, movie stars were gods and films were sacred texts to be revered by supplicant crowds. Not any more. The arrival of home video gave audiences control over their viewing habits, then the digital revolution provided them with ways of contorting and reimagining Hollywood output and sharing the results. SWEDE DREAMS celebrates the best of this work in the aptly hybrid livingroom – cum-cinema that is the Roxy Bar & Screen.
Online piracy is widely perceived as a challenge to the mainstream movie industry, and it’s true that today’s viewers approach cinema with a new sense of entitlement. But that entitlement has creative and artistic as well as economic consequences. This two-day festival programmed by Ben Walters takes its name from ‘sweding’ – the term coined in Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind to describe affectionate, irreverent and unauthorised amateur remakes of established titles – and it celebrates the finest fruits of this approach.
SWEDE DREAMS includes five features:
- Be Kind Rewind – sweding starts here!
- Star Wars Uncut – the whole movie remade in 15-second chunks by superfans!
- Son of Rambow – two kids remake First Blood in the English countryside in the 80s!
- Flooding with Love for the Kid – one man remakes First Blood in his flat – alone!
- Night of the Living Dead Reanimated – animators feast on Romero’s classic!
The season also includes a special edition of regular Roxy cult-cinema night Midnight Movies’ Nightcap, paying tribute to stop-motion maestro and sweding aficionado Lee Hardcastle. A smattering of notable sweded shorts, mash-ups, supercuts and faux trailers will be showcased over the weekend too.
More info here.
