Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream

The six films El Topo, Night of the Living Dead, John Waters’ Pink Flamingos, The Harder They Come, Eraserhead, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Literally over night they changed from unknown footage into cult films through the revolutionary American cinematic phenomenon of the 1970s – midnight movies. The films’ radical generic experiments and breaking of sexual, religious and other taboos found a wildly enthusiastic response from young people who, like their peers from other parts of the world, were just then subjecting post-war social values to radical revisionism. Although attending midnight screenings started out as a fad, it quickly turned into a social ritual, as seen in period shots of theatres packed with raucous filmgoers. The directors themselves appear in the documentary and place the flamboyant ‘bad taste’ of their work in a socio-historical context. The film was screened at last year’s Cannes festival.

Screening within Official Echoes of 41st Karlovy Vary IFF

SCREENING ALSO IN CINEMA AERO
15.7. at 22.30 More information here.