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On an unassuming street in central London, a red-painted building peeks at passersby \u2014 its facade plastered with a close-up of The Man with the X-Ray Eyes. Inside, I\u2019m watching Ruggero Deodato\u2019s The Washing Machine, an Italian murder mystery involving psychosexual mind games, fridge fornication, and bleeding appliances.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the kind of filmic fever dream only The Nickel would dare to screen: a new micro cinema in London founded by filmmaker and programmer Dominic Hicks. Imbued with the frenetic spirit and sleazy charm of retro American grindhouse theatres, it\u2019s a shrine to the deranged gems of exploitation cinema: gritty, boundary-pushing B-movies. <\/p>\n
Or as Hicks puts it: \u201cA safe place for weirdos and outsiders.\u201d<\/p>\n
June\u2019s inaugural screenings include everything from Todd Browning’s silent horror The Unknown, to Roman Polanski’s erotic thriller Bitter Moon, to David Winters\u2019 Cannes-set giallo The Last Horror Film. The programming embraces an anything-goes approach, inspired by the edgy offerings of London\u2019s infamous Scala cinema.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI like films where the beauty in them comes through how the audience receives and nurtures them in their collective imagination,\u201d Hicks tells Euronews Culture. \u201cWhether it’s the practical effects, or the score, or the bad acting that they find really quotable \u2014 it belongs to the audience in the long run.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Nickel might be small, but in an era of digital disconnection and algorithmic ennui, it\u2019s part of a growing movement across Europe: DIY film clubs and hyperlocal venues that counter the monoculture of streaming services and multiplexes. From Liverpool\u2019s trans-inclusive \u2018Paraphysis Cinema\u2019 to the feminist-themed \u2018Tonnerre\u2019 in Paris, these repertory pop-ups represent a desire among cinephiles to discover subversive oddities as intended: with an audience.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThese community spaces are an opportunity to bring people back together to have conversations about movies,\u201d Hicks says. \u201cYou don’t have to all feel the same, but the idea of being challenged, or getting the giggles together about some strange little forgotten gem, is always going to be entertaining.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
This idea of confronting discomfort together is key. Namwali Serpell, writing in the New Yorker<\/strong><\/a>, recently lamented the rise of \u201cnew literalism\u201d \u2014 a cinematic trend where movies like The Substance<\/strong><\/a> and Anora<\/strong><\/a> heavy-handedly spell out their meanings and politics. Exploitation cinema, in all its moral ambiguity and tonal absurdity, offers a thrilling antithesis.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI actually prefer, particularly when you look at the films of the 70s, how murky those movies were \u2014 that it’s not abundantly clear if the filmmakers had the right morals,\u201d Hicks explains. \u201cFor me, that doesn’t mean it\u2019s actually promoting poor morals. I think audiences are intelligent enough to challenge what they’re seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n Before raising nearly \u00a314,000 (\u20ac16,640) for its permanent space, Hicks ran The Nickel as an event programme for his local pub and The Cinema Museum. Much of what he shared was on rare 16mm prints, tapping into the sensory ambience of physical formats. <\/p>\n Similar to the revival of vinyl<\/strong><\/a>, the crackle and click of film reels have become a way for people to connect with art more tangibly. \u201cYou can’t come close to the aesthetic experience of watching an original film print being projected in public when you’re streaming things digitally,\u201d Hicks says, citing one magical moment at The Cinema Museum when the projector got stuck and burned a film print: \u201cEverybody was just delighted. It was like we’d seen a shooting star.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Though The Nickel is still under construction when I visit, the vibe already feels special. Obscure physical media<\/strong><\/a> lines the entrance\u2019s shelves, their lurid covers begging to be fondled. Meanwhile, the dimly-lit basement bar is set to double as a communal hub for film-related workshops. \u201cUltimately the plan would be to have everybody create projects together, then we can screen them here,\u201d says Hicks, excited at the prospect of working \u201con weird shit\u201d with others.<\/p>\n At a time when cinemas face a precarious future, The Nickel\u2019s vision is ambitious and comfortingly optimistic. According to the Independent Cinema Office (ICO)<\/strong><\/a>, almost a third of UK independent cinemas are under threat, with London institutions like The Prince Charles<\/strong><\/a> launching petitions against redevelopment. But Hicks doesn\u2019t believe cinema will die \u2014 just its commercial models of old.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think we’re seeing a return to that neighbourhood, smaller, independent cinema, because multiplexes don’t give people a compelling enough reason to leave their sofas,\u201d he explains. \u201cBut I have faith that people won\u2019t surrender something so essential as the experience of going to the movies. I really hope not, anyway. And if they do, it’ll be a hill worth dying on for me.\u201d<\/p>\n As the end credits of The Washing Machine roll, the room fizzes with the excitable energy of a shared (and sordid) little secret. Away from the anodyne streaming output, there\u2019s a quiet rebelliousness in The Nickel\u2019s embrace of mess, madness and misfits \u2014 a reminder that cinema\u2019s darkened rooms are often where we feel most fully seen.<\/p>\n The Nickel cinema opens in London on 11 June.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ADVERTISEMENT On an unassuming street in central London, a red-painted building peeks at passersby \u2014 its facade plastered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,1439,393,3063,4884,257,38358,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-147139","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-cinema","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-film","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-movie-industry","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114603196654857922","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}