10
Bido Lito! June 2015
Words: Damon Fairclough / noiseheatpower.com
Illustration: Lucy Roberts / lucyannerobertsillustration.co.uk
The cinema screen was vast. It stretched across the void of a
decadent night.
Over its silvery skin flitted well-fed faces, fat hands pressing
flesh, the glint and menace of a doomed political class.
Instinctively, my stomach began to churn with revulsion, but
before I could quite take in what was happening there was a
flash in the corner of my gaze. Out of nowhere, there were youths
armed with petrol bombs; they darted from the darkness and
hurled bottles at the images, at the screen. There was panic and
confusion as more figures spirited into view. Again they lobbed
their blazing projectiles; it was clear that the venue was under
attack. The giant cinema was on fire. Its shadows were being
consumed by the flames.
No need to call Merseyside Fire & Rescue though, as this was
a scene from a film rather than just another night at the Odeon
IMAX. It was a fragment from Mikhail Kalatozov’s poetic 1964 epic I
Am Cuba (Soy Cuba), in which revolutionary students from Havana
University were striking against a propagandist news reel; their
targets were the lies of the dying Batista regime, but, viewed from
the plush velvet cuddle of a seat in the LIVERPOOL SMALL CINEMA,
the action carried a symbolism that seemed closer to home.
“Death to cinema’s super-size culture!” it seemed to scream,
meaning a culture bloated by buckets of Coke and pick ‘n’ mix
grab bags and popcorn dispensed by the yard. Perhaps it was also
meant to herald the dawn of a cinema experience more bijou,
less boorish – more akin, maybe, to the memory of cinema as a
place of sorcery, not surround sound.
The Liverpool Small Cinema is on Victoria Street in the old
Magistrates’ Court. Behind its arched, gothic door lies a world of
endearing shabbiness, of daubed emulsion, of ushers who also
programme the films and who probably even built the place too.
It feels part art project, part community good deed – like a churchhall film-show run by Andy Warhol’s Factory.
The venue has been open for little over a month but it’s already
building a word-of-mouth following of people who enjoy its films
and affordability – the sold-out screening of I Am Cuba cost a mere
£3 per ticket. With just 56 seats – plus a couple of wheelchair
bidolito.co.uk
spaces – it’s clear that this project isn’t inten Y