WEIRD WEEKEND Film Festival 2024

A overdue write-up of an enjoyable weekend at Glasgow's cult film festival WEIRD WEEKEND, put together by Matchbox Cineclub.

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Rocking Up

On Saturday afternoon, I step onto the platform at Glasgow Central. I’m home away from home for a weekend of weird-ass, cult cinema with a load of film weirdos. Last night I screened Vampyros Lesbos for the gays of Liverpool and stayed out way past my bedtime, bending over a pool table for some lovely dykes. This morning, hungover, I threw my shit into a bag and hopped on a Northwestern train heading to Preston with a good friend Ell, who’d house me for the next few days.

Being the last-minute person I am, I only decided to go to WEIRD WEEKEND the week before, after the weekend passes had already sold out. Lucky for me, I was kindly offered a press pass for Louise Weard’s CASTRATION MOVIE PT.1 that Saturday night in exchange for some writing. So, I rock up just before 8 pm to this brand-new moving-image/art space called OFFSET on the south side of Glasgow, after a delicious pad thai on the West Side. Outside, I meet a lad named Kyle, who I’d connected with on Twitter over a mutual appreciation of perverted movies amongst an atmosphere of friendly chatter. I go inside, grab a warm drink and get cosy in preparation for a long night of DIY trans cinema.

A Night of Castration

Where to start? this is far from Lousie Weard’s first rodeo; her debut feature ‘Computer Hearts’ came out just over a decade ago. Though made before her transition, it features a castration scene that echoes into the future as a central theme of her work. But not in ways that are as straightforward as you think - the castration metaphor extends further than a simple transgender desire to self-mutilate, to transform the flesh into something new - but nods to her characters' suffering from the disillusionment of life in late capitalism.

Weird Weekend flew Louise from Canada to introduce the World Theatral Premier of this epic anthology of 21st-century transsexuality: Castration Movie Pt I: Traps. [Admittedly, I'm finishing this article months after the festival, so forgive me for not being able to repeat the details.]

The first of this two-part 4.5-hour epic appears on a title card as Chapter I. Incel Superman – a small insight into a young heterosexual couple from Vancouver who are mildly annoying but still kinda fascinating to watch. Not even three scenes in, and we’re listening to an in-bed argument about Turner’s apathetic approach to their shared sex life, a hint at his impotence. They’re both just soo not on the same page about anything; each speaks, and it’s like the other hears what they want through insecurity and responds accordingly.

My favourite bit is when Turner reads Brooklyn a poem he wrote about her in some fast food restaurant. She has to stop him midway through as he poetically confesses that she is nothing more than an abstract symbol of future potential - his idea of 'romance'. It’s awkward, but I think this particular monologue puts into perspective this first chapter and, in turn, the ontology of the movie. There’s an undeniable undercurrent of powerlessness and apathy in life just happening that Louise conveys through her character's attempts to find 'meaning in their lives by prescribing their problems oppositionally.' (i) Brooklyn and Turner don't really seem to like each other that much. Though Brooklyn's interiority is only expressed through her frustration that is curbed by Turner, we slowly realise that he's only really with her because of this internalised incel philosophy: the idea that women exist to break up the doldrum, monotony of life in which young men [like him] feel castrated by.

Turner.

Later, Turner lies in bed reading the incel board on 4chan whilst Brooklyn draws some commissioned illustrated furry porn. Endless comments articulating powerless, wanting love and affection to escape their self-proclaimed ~loser status~. There’s an undeniable impotency that murmurs through this first chapter (and later, the 2nd chapter too).

‘All you do is emasculate me!’

Eventually, we arrive at the inevitable breakup scene in the rain, where Brooklyn asks, ‘What do you add to my life?’ to a prolonged pause. I guess a lot of us have known of one of those dudes: they wanna build a life from an idea of you, where you’re nothing but a piece of furniture. They act as if being given attention or affection by a woman is a cure-all for their self-imposed impotency.

It may seem an odd choice to spend the first 1.5 hours of a transexual movie with an incel-coded young man, but as the film progresses, the extent of the castration metaphor settles in: the undeniable helplessness of the modern Canadian/American/Western subject.

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After some post-break-up sequences, in which Turner goes on a bit of a downward spiral, our second title card appears: Chapter ii. Traps Swan Princess. Here we meet Michaela "Traps" Sinclair - our star, played by Louise herself. [side note: I read that she gained 20 pounds specifically to play a fat trans woman on a big screen.] We first see her giving an unsimulated blow job in exchange for some unspecified white powder off a john, before an introduction to her close friend group sat around a kitchen table. They're listening to how their friend Mark can't get laid. Michaela gets a little riled and suggests he stop winging and try

‘transmaxxing’ - another gem from the 4chan incel board. Her tone is harsh and slightly self-righteous. Traps is not the most likeable character in the way she forcible mothers those around her, thinking she knows best. But what she is is real: not the imaginary, outstanding trans citizen that is put before the cis world to convince them that trans people deserve healthcare or decent means of life. There's a bold quietness to the lingering moments Traps has with herself: naked in front of the mirror, injecting estrogen, the honest and off-the-cuff chats with her friends that gently expose her longing for ~biological~ motherhood (a mirroring quest for purposefulness perhaps?), masturbating into a medical cup... every moment is lived in top to bottom. Being trans is transgressive (maybe it's not for many, but..) - Castration Movie: Part 1 embodies that fact loudly and unashamedly with a voyeurist Hi8 digicam, zooming up close or sitting in the corner of the room, silently absorbing the anxious insecurities of trans people on the fringes of Vancouver. It's like, I know these girls exist somewhere.

Whilst we've been treated to an increasing number of trans-authored films over the last few years, I would argue this picture is pioneering an emerging 'transexual' cinema with how it questions the idea of respectability politics through a soul-bearing realism that at times feels completely unscripted. There are many ~transgenders~, but it's transsexuality that recognises physical transitioning as something genuinely transgressive whilst honouring that fact - warts and all. people/life are so often unforgiving to transfems; expecting them to be exceptional beings with nothing wrong, no problematic thoughts, behaviours or mental illness etc. It's so refreshing to see a girl who's on the DIY shit, regularly scrolls 4chan and begs for the most pitiful hate-fuck off her recent ex-boyfriend, if you can even call him that. And you know what, despite all that, I'm rooting for her.

Cameos from other independent trans filmmakers such as Vera Drew (The People's Joker) and Alice Maio Mackay (T-Blockers) inject the sense of tight-knit community that is essential to produce such a film that isn't entirely funded by institutional money pots.

No secret that this was one of my favourite watches of 2024. Well worth the four-hour train to Glasgow to see this with a genuinely reactive audience, laughing and cringing at all the right moments. In a room of, I wanna say, mostly transfem or gender-weird folks. Honestly the perfect setting. So, if you're close to Manchester later this year, we'll be bringing this epic to a fab independent cinema so you can watch it how God intended!

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Even after 275 minutes of abstract castration, WEIRD WEEKEND commissioned a further hour-long video from Louise for their UNSEE schedule; the chunk of programming shown from 12-1 am, right before the clocks go back, and we question whether it ever happened. In this hour of daylight savings, we witnessed a very personal deconstruction of 100 Best Kills: Texas Birth Control, Dick

Destruction: an hour-and-a-half historical document of castration scenes in cinema that premiered at Fantastic Fest in 2022. Louise's UNSEE episode features a lot of talking directly to the camera/audience to reflect on creating something so intimately personal, revealing, and confrontationally violent. What it means to play with the subject matter of phallic dick destruction as a trans woman. Admission of feeling inadequate as an artist and dealing with imposter syndrome as a somewhat outsider in the film world. At one point, she even got her ex-finance to read out passages from a book on Film Semiotics to inject images of exploitation with genuine theoretical considerations.

I felt seen by this in ways I wasn't able to pinpoint; I had no material dick to destroy, and yet I'd been tagging films with 'castration' since I'd started Letterboxd. Maybe it was a confrontation with vulgarity, some kind of misandrist urge within me to explore the visual politics penis mutilation - this extremely Bataillean confrontation with the symbolic order. I am anti-oedipal after all.

I had the pleasure of talking briefly to Louise outside OFFSET before heading home for the night.

Somehow, we got onto the subject matter of Shaun Costello's hilariously grotty hardcore film Water Power (1976) about an enema fetishist played by Jamie Gillis, and how it's both one of our favourite titles of the genre! -- said no one else, ever.... So, as well as being a great filmmaker, she's also got great taste in vile and perverted things.

[I wrote a good article about it a few weeks before the festival; you can read here]

I highly recommend buying Louise’s filmography on Gumroad for Pay Want You Want prices. You, too, can witness this triumph in Transexual cinema from the comfort of your own home. Though, I'd grab a few friends for it, too.

In fantastic news: Castration Movie Part.2: Best of Both Worlds recently hit its funding goal on Kickstarter and will be coming to your screen later this year...

Knackered but fulfilled, I make my way back to my friend's flat, smoke a joint and get to bed to prepare myself for a full day of curated cult cinema.

Sunday Funday

Sunday, I woke up and had a gorgeous breakfast of seasonal pumpkin soup made by my friend, which filled me up - ready for the day ahead. I was still thinking about Castration Movie as I scrubbed my face in the shower.

On this day of the Lord, I was locked in. Though I missed the first film of the day, ‘What Happened to Vileness Fats?’ for a little lie-in, I arrived at OFFSET at 2 pm for The Big Blue (1988), not to be confused with the French film about whales by Luc Bresson from the same year.  Known for being a documentarian, Andrew Horn's second feature is a difficult one to find on the vast network of the internet. It's a film that

really understands the vibe of a noir with strung-out saxophone melodies, moody characters spitting out double-entendre, heavily stylised with big cutouts of skyscrapers that reminded me of German expressionist sets. Private detective Jack insists he’s at arm's length from the seediness he pursues, but is he? The Big Blue explores urban voyeurism through the conversations Jack listens to that all begin to sound suspicious - as with anything out of context - reminding me heavily of Coppola's paranoic American New Wave film The Conversation (1971). The script constantly distances the characters from forming a bigger picture, lost in lust amongst the skyscrapers. Shame I can’t watch this again. It feels like something I should have come across on Tubi with its extensive collection of (neo) noirs. Maybe one day.

Next was The Woman Chaser (1999), a previously considered lost, tongue-in-cheek film adapted from Charles Willeford's 1960 pulp fiction of the same name.

Features a snarky Alec Baldwin-type car dealership owner whose big dream is to get his noir screenplay on the big screen. I remember it having a good sense of humour whilst maintaining a darker, curious side. It wasn't my favourite of the day, but it's definitely entertaining for its cooky riff on the og classic noirs. There's a scene where our hero Hudson comes home to his Mum pirouetting around the house, so he strips off his shirt and joins her. Played with complete seriousness, it's one of the funniest scenes in the movie.

The Woman Chaser is currently streaming on a few sites.

The highlight of my day was Screamplay (1984), which had a recorded intro with writer-director-star Rufus B Sedar about his fascination with the magic and practical effects of primitive/early cinema. You can read the article he wrote for Weird Weekend over on their website.(ii) He stopped making movies at some point to make optical illusions in books, to the scale of roadside murals. You can definitley see this interest come through in his film.

There's a bit in the article where he talks about Slavko Vorkapić's fantastic short expressionist film about the predatory nature of Hollywood studios: The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood Extra (1928), which I immediately recognised as a strong visual influence in Screamplay, as well as thematic ones.

Set almost entirely in an apartment block somewhere near Hollywood, our wide-eyed protagonist, Edgar Allen, rocks up to town in hopes of becoming a famous screenwriter. Whilst being given a room to live in the apartment block in exchange for being the janitor, he meets an ensemble of washed-up characters on the fringes of Tinsel town. Writing his screenplay, he becomes heavily inspired by events around him, and unusual deaths start to become of his neighbours. Has Edgar begun to type his own sordid destiny?

Screamplay balances the campy energy of a B-movie with some outlandish performances whilst gently weaving in tropes of noir: the occasional voiceover, a battle between Good + Evil, and two pesky detectives who're trying to figure out who the killer There's a fun and imaginative meta-narrative about a man losing his mind; being chewed up and spat out by the Hollywood machine whilst barely making it into the fold. In the end, it's time to pack up and go home.

It's fascinating that Troma eventually picked this up, as it does stand a little apart from their catalogue. But it's a title that deserves to be seen. I was lucky enough to see a brand new 4k restoration made from Seder's own 16mm print.

Finally, our last movie of the day was a mystery: we'd be shown 5 trailers from AGFA [American Genre Film Archive] and pick one. Puke the Clown came out to rile us up to hooting for our favourite choice. All the titles had pretty much the

same volume of applause apart from the last: Final Flesh (2009), for which someone made damn sure it was picked by jovially screaming. I'm pretty sure this was the only title I recognised. Finding this on Internet Archive late one night is still one of the most bizarre viewing experiences I've ever had. Though I'd previously fallen asleep just before the end, I was really looking forward to sitting through this with an audience.

Threatened by an atomic bomb, The Pollard Family wonder about what to do at the peak of apocalyptic American SOV surrealism. Final Flesh is a porno with no sex: only performed horniness for the end of the world. A pure & eery nonsense fetish mixtape of genuine porn tube searches enacted by adult performers. Extremely hard to follow, if you can follow at all, which is why I wouldn't recommend that approach at all. It didn't surprise me how many walkouts there were for this. But I think you really gotta stick with it - go beyond bafflement and into something more significant, transcendent. Perfect close to the day, and equally - a weird weekend.

Recap

There's a glaring omission from this account of the weekend: the fact I missed the complete block of trans programming on Saturday, late afternoon, consisting of Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers (1972) with an introduction from Jaye Hudson (TGirlsOnFilm) and Vera Drew presents: Weird Weekend Wildcard. Incredible trans film programming that's really hard to find outside of London, with 2 titles being their UK debuts. I shall be rectifying this misstep very soon.

Thank you Matchbox Cineclub, for bringing these obscure titles to the UK and providing fantastic descriptive subtitles for each of them. Weird Weekend was a genuinely welcoming, friendly festival with a great crowd. Thought-out solutions to the lack of insulation in OFFSET being a relatively new building with an abundance of hand warmers I kept helping myself to throughout the day. Also, there were always snacks on offer with a constant supply of hot tea and coffee. During the intermission of Castration Movie, we were surprised with some hot takeout pizza to fuel us through the second half. I left OFFSET that Sunday evening feeling genuinely looked after, both physically and in the sense of viewing some fantastic cult cinema.

Cannot wait to go again this October, and for the whole weekend this time!

photograph by Ingrid Mur

Footnotes:

(i) The Best of Both Worlds - Louise Weard's Production Journal Substack

(ii) Rufus B Seder on Screamplay (1984) - Weird Weekend Website

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P.s My project Paraphysis Cinema is pairing with Matchbox Cine this month to bring Vera Drew's debut The People's Joker to Liverpool<3

Grab tickets here x