We’re marking this year’s festival dates with a very special online-exclusive outing for Weird Weekend’s UNSEE event, where we invite guest programmers to respond to a unique prompt. This year’s exclusive UNSEE programme streams live on our online cinema, once on 29th October (exclusively in the UK) and then again on 5th November (exclusively in the US), 1am to 1am.*
UNSEE takes place in the hour before the clocks go back, meaning that, as soon as it’s finished, it’s like it never happened. Our guest programmers can share something they couldn’t, wouldn’t or shouldn’t otherwise in what for you, the audience, is an hour of your life you actually will get back.
Last year, we invited curator and director Elizabeth Purchell (Ask Any Buddy) to curate a full programme, ELIZABETH PURCHELL: UNSEE, around her UNSEE hour at Weird Weekend at CCA, Glasgow.
This year, we’ve invited VERA DREW, director of The People’s Joker, to create a very special hour of entertainment for you. This hour is curated exclusively for Weird Weekend and VERA DREW: UNSEE will stream once and never again.*
AND we’re thrilled to announce we’ll be returning to a monthly screening programme next year, leading into Weird Weekend’s fourth edition in October 2024. We’ll be hosting new programmes on our online cinema on the last weekend of every month, starting in January, as well as hosting related physical events locally and internationally.
Weird Weekend and its related monthly screening series are dedicated to the orphans, outcasts and outliers of cult cinema – strange and compelling films that due to circumstance or sheer personality have fallen through the cracks of the canon. Underpinning our events is a focus on access and inclusion, so as many people as possible can see these wild and incredible films that are otherwise out of circulation. All events at Weird Weekend, including VERA DREW: UNSEE feature optional descriptive subtitles and audio description and are priced on a sliding scale – you decide what to pay based on your means, with reference to our tiered guide.
Watch UNSEE exclusively on our Online Cinema: watch.eventive.org/weirdweekend
*UNSEE will stream once in the UK when the clocks go back, in the early hours of Sunday 29th October, then again in the USA, when the clocks go back on 5th November (one stream per timezone: Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific). Each stream, though, is one-and-done and geoblocked to each timezone – e.g. if you’re in New York, you’ll only be able to watch the Vera Drew: Unsee (US Eastern Timezone).
Matchbox Cine | Matchbox Cine is an independent exhibitor of outcasts, orphans and outliers and an award-winning subtitler, specialising in access provision in film exhibition and distribution. Established in 2010, they programme, curate and promote cult film events, including the festivals Weird Weekend, Cage-a-rama and KeanuCon. In parallel, they’ve made access materials (descriptive subtitles and audio description) for over 3,000 films and short films.
Weird Weekend | Weird Weekend is an annual cult film festival based in Glasgow, Scotland, founded, programmed and produced by Matchbox Cine. Past editions have brought to Glasgow exclusive and world and UK premiere screenings, including Tom Schiller’s Nothing Lasts Forever on 35mm, Craig Denney’s The Astrologer, Wil Aaron’s O’r Ddaear Hen and John Paizs’ Crime Wave: The Original Cut. In 2022, we restored and premiered Fredric Hobbs’ “lost” film Troika (1969), commissioned the first English subtitles for Welsh language horrors Gwaed Ar Y Sêr (1975) and O’r Ddaear Hen (1981), premiered a brand-new restoration of Claude d’Anna’s Trompe l’oeil (1975), with our newly translated English subtitles, and toured Kier-La Janisse around the UK to celebrate the 10th anniversary expanded edition of her book, House of Psychotic Women.
Vera Drew | A genuine multi-hyphenate, Vera is an accomplished filmmaker and actor who came up in TV post production. Once known in her alternative comedy circle as an “editor that thinks like a writer,” she expertly edited and contributed visual effects to dozens of iconic comedy televisions shows, including Check It Out With Dr. Steve Brule, The Birthday Boys, Krft Punk’s Political Party (for which she got her first contributing writer credit), season two of I Think You Should Leave, three seasons of Comedy Bang! Bang! on IFC, and On Cinema (she later went onto direct season 12). Having honed her skills at Tim and Eric’s Abso Lutely Productions (a company known for incubating some of the industry’s most unique editors), Vera’s talent as an editor has been recognized by the Television Academy in 2019 when she was nominated for Emmy for her work on Sacha Baron Cohen’s Who Is America? That same year, she launched Tim and Eric’s streaming TV network (for which she wrote and directed four series and hours of original content) . Prior to that, Vera was a contributor to Highland Park TV and Everything Is Terrible. Most recently, Vera Drew finished her first feature film, The People’s Joker – a Queer coming of age comic book parody that premiered at TIFF in Fall of 2021to critical acclaim and minor controversy. A proud trans woman born and raised in the south suburbs of Chicago, she has been making funny, spooky, and/or queer short films and music videos for most of her life. She is currently writing her next feature film and trying to #FreeThePeoplesJoker.