SCALA!!! Press Quotes

“A riotously entertaining yet also an impressively serious account”
Mark Kermode, Kermode and Mayo’s Take, Film of the Week

“Richly enjoyable… a very entertaining madeleine for movie-going of the analogue age”

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian (4 stars)

“Jane Giles and co-director Ali Catterall do a fantastic job of taking us inside the shuddering walls”

Wendy Ide, Observer (4 stars)

“This genially entertaining film is deeply evocative of a London that has changed beyond recognition, for better or worse, and of a lost utopia of cinema-going as shared experience”

Jonathan Romney, Financial Times (4 stars)

“Winningly leftfield and wildly infectious… you could watch it without having been within a thousand miles of this once-seedy corner of King’s Cross and still get a kick out of it. Take a trip to one of the cultiest corners of cinema and embrace the weirdness”
Phil de Semlyen, Time Out (4 stars)

“You’ll be agog at what people used to get away with… the anecdotes alone make this worth seeing”

Anna Smith, Rolling Stone UK (4 stars)

“Hilarious… a riotous reminder of how great the theatrical experience can be”
Hanna Flint, The Sun (4 stars)

Irish Times (4 stars) The Week (4 stars)

“A film made by, about and for proper film devotees”

Empire (4 stars)

“Just as the films the Scala championed drank from an outlaw, rock’n’roll elixir, so Scala!!! goes beyond an ageing coterie's nostalgia to confirm the continuing value of our communal counter-cultures, and the other lives you can dream in the dark”
Nick Hasted, Arts Desk (4 stars)

“Like the Scala itself, the film is a no-holds barred celebration of life, peppered with numerous clips of the many and amazing films that graced the silver screen of the Scala to the accompaniment of those rumbling underground trains. In retrospect, going to the Scala felt like dying for a brief time and going to heaven, and this engrossing documentary admirably succeeds in capturing that sentiment for its 96 minutes”
Jeremy Clarke, jeremycprocessing.com (5 stars)

“With a sparky pace, whizzy visual flourishes and a terrific original score by Barry Adamson, the film charges through the Scala's colourful story. The filmmakers pack a staggering amount of material into a relatively brief running time, and it remarkably never feels rushed”
Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall (4 stars)

“As a testament to the power of outsider art and off-the-wall characters, Scala!!! is just a mere taster of a place that was the nearest the UK had to a grindhouse cinema and is sorely missed”

Martin Unsworth, Starburst (4 stars)

“Jam-packed with glorious psychotronic clips, it neatly encapsulates the Scala’s ramshackle underground ethos”

Ian Berriman, SFX (4 stars)

“A hilarious blast back to a London we’ve only recently said goodbye to”
Evening Standard, January’s Hottest Documentaries

“As well as being as funny, entertaining and irreverent as the films the cinema typically screened, Scala!!! is a testimony to the value of physical cultural spaces. It’s a film about audiences and how they can become productive creative communities”
Phil Harrison, The Guardian

“Nothing has made me more excited about film and filmgoing than Scala!!!, a modestly funded (and immodestly exclamation-marked) documentary about a venue in London that was shuttered over 30 years ago”

Sukhdev Sandhu, Prospect

“Deeply evocative”

lan Winwood, The Telegraph

“The documentary demonstrates that the Scala was a space that transcended the limits of cinema through community. Despite closing in 1993, its presence still lives on in the lives it affected and even to cinema-goers like me who weren’t even alive during its infamous reign. The film’s commentary on audiences therefore comes full circle, ensuring that a piece of this celebrated cinema can still live on through each and every viewer of this documentary”

Daniella Alconaba, The Mancunian (4 stars)

“Whether you gained your cinematic education from the Scala Cinema or not, the film takes you right back to its heyday in the 1980s, skilfully using stock news footage and clips from some of the arthouse films screened to immerse you in its world once again”
Gustav Temple, The Chap

“A glorious memorial to a landmark space where alternative culture once thrived”
Socialist Worker

“Scala!!! is unashamedly a celebration and an exercise in nostalgia. On those terms it must be regarded as a success”

Philip Concannon, Sight and Sound

“A very well made and extremely entertaining film, and all the talking heads bring a curious titbit to the mix… an exhaustive and lively document of a cult scene”

Little White Lies

“Darkness has been historically conceived, if not primarily by the Bible, but seemingly forever as a doom-like thing, a reason for rejection, a targeted subject to evade a member of the unspeakable of society. Nonetheless, directors Jane Giles and Ali Catterall make sure to show through SCALA!!! how it is possible to sit through that exact same darkness and find love in the darkness that surrounds you. And the very one inside you through the experience of cinema”

Linda Marine, Girls at Film