We bumped into the mys­te­ri­ous world of London’s Secret Cin­ema some time ago. Although it is not the lat­est news, we decided to share this imag­i­na­tive con­cept with you in the hope of see­ing and engag­ing in some­thing alike here in Helsinki in the future… Some­thing to def­i­nitely look for­ward to for film enthu­si­asts like ourselves!

Secret Cin­ema is a monthly series of secret film events in undis­closed loca­tions. Hints about the upcom­ing event, usu­ally the date, time and loca­tion but scarcely any­thing else, are sent out to Secret Cinema’s newslet­ter sub­scribers and social media fol­low­ers a few days prior to the show time. In most cases the par­tic­i­pants are also encour­aged to dress up along the theme, which is intro­duced with vague, mind-boggling word­plays and quotes.

Watch­men, on the way to seOne Club, London

Once arriv­ing to the near­est tube stop of the given loca­tion on the given date and time, the expe­ri­ence is right under­way. Step by step towards the X spot the film starts appear­ing in front of one’s eyes. The stage set­ting becomes more and more appar­ent when mis­cel­la­neous sug­ges­tive emblems and other visual con­struc­tions unfold one street cor­ner after another, and key scenes are reen­acted by mass per­for­mances of accord­ingly out­fit­ted vol­un­teer actors. Some­where along the way, the audi­ence have unwit­tingly become actors them­selves and blended into the staged scenery, gen­er­at­ing a live expe­ri­ence com­pletely oppo­site to a reg­u­lar movie the­ater visit. The shared expe­ri­ence cul­mi­nates in the wild cheer­ing and cel­e­bra­tion after the actual screen­ing of the film.

The War­riors, Coney Island recon­struc­tion in Lon­don Fields

Bugsy Mal­one after­party at The Troxy, London

Films shown in Secret Cin­ema include old and con­tem­po­rary clas­sics such as Lawrence of Ara­bia, Para­noid Park, Ghost­busters, Wings of Desire, Bugsy Mal­one, The War­riors and Blade Run­ner, each with a bespoke set­ting and atmos­phere. In order to cre­ate the needed unique­ness and sur­prise fac­tor every time, Secret Cin­ema is work­ing with a diverse range of col­lab­o­ra­tors from big broad­cast­ing stu­dios to local cos­tume shops.

The secret film gath­er­ings have been in action since 2005. The first inter­na­tional expan­sion of the con­cept was launched this sum­mer in New York with a screen­ing of Michelan­gelo Antonioni’s Blow-up in a photo stu­dio in Brook­lyn. Secret Cin­ema is an off­shoot of Future Cin­ema, a Lon­don based cre­ative events agency, which also orga­nizes other film related events like prod­uct launches, pre­mieres and award ceremonies.

Blow-up, Secret Cin­ema New York launch in a photo stu­dio in Brooklyn

All images from Future Cinema’s flickr.

www.secretcinema.org
www.futurecinema.co.uk