The Red Bulletin June 2019

Secret Cinema
Back to the Future,
Printworks London
(2014)
"There was a piece in the
Evening Standard saying
we’d affected the way
people dressed that summer,
that women were wearing
'50s dresses," says Kulkarni.
"It may be just a coincidence
or something subliminal.
It's extraordinary to think
a cultural event can
influence what people wear."
DJ’s set, they go, ‘Shit, wasn’t this where the
X-wing flew over my head?’”
“The X-wing was definitely a challenge,”
says Moccia of the full-size prop that enacted
the finale of Star Wars before the celluloid
sequel rolled. “It was built from MDF and rigged
to an automation system, with projection
mapping to look as if it was flying through
space. Luke Skywalker was in it throughout.
One time, the automation system failed and
he got stuck up there for about an hour.”
“The Empire Strikes Back was the zenith,”
says Matt Bennett, a DJ who joined to head up
the music department. “I just needed a change,”
he says. That’s what he got. “I was putting on
club nights for 1,000 people in Glasgow, and
there are more than 400 people working on
Star Wars. The production company, Wonder
Works, did the [London 2012] Olympics
Romeo
+ Juliet,
Gunnersbury
Park (2018)
Tied to the theme of
youth violence, the
show worked with the
charity MAC-UK. "We
got Loki, a political
rapper, to come and
work on the project
and raise money and
awareness on knife
crime," says Bennett.
opening and closing ceremonies. I had three
months to figure out the music showcase.
It was seat-of-the-pants stuff.”
Bennett’s initiation was made tougher by
a new experiment: alongside the four stages
at Printworks was a warm-up gig at an
undisclosed location. “It was the little secret
behind the big secret. We had all the bands
from the main site and some DJs – everyone
learnt to play the cantina band song.” Actors
mingling with the crowd added a new layer
of immersion. “Fabien wanted to open up allnight
parties in the style of [Berlin nightclub]
Berghain. Thankfully we never got to that
stage, because we were consumed by delivering
100 nights of Star Wars to 100,000 people.
After the runaway success of The Empire
Strikes Back, the window of possibility was
thrown wide open. For last year’s Blade
Runner that included building a future Los
Angeles with an indoor rain system for 86
nights. “We had a massive pool under the
floor connected to a closed loop system that
pumped water up to a rain rig on the ceiling,”
says Moccia. “We had to clean the pool daily,
because people dropped chips in it. “But to
see that hero moment, with everybody opening
their umbrellas, drenched in neon light – it
was like being in Shibuya on a rainy night.”
Every member of Secret Cinema has their
favourite moment. For Bennett, it might
have been DJing in that acid rain at Blade
Runner. “It felt important, but it was just
playing techno to people who were totally wet
and having the time of their lives.” Instead, he
has another: “In 2015, we went to the Calais
refugee camp. It was the week that small boy
[Syrian three-year-old Alan Kurdi] washed up
dead on the shore [in Turkey]. Fabien insisted
we stage a cultural protest against the treatment
of the people at the camp. We took Afrikan
Boy, a Nigerian-born London rapper who
sings about global politics and immigration,
and set up a pop-up cinema screen showing a
Bollywood film to all the families in the camp.
“There were thousands of people who had
no home and didn’t think they had a future.
They weren’t sitting eating popcorn. It was a
very immediate moment of having an impact
on people’s lives who maybe really needed to
watch a film. The baddies got booed, the girls
got cheered. We raised money afterwards to
keep the project going, then the political
landscape changed when people were killed
in Paris and Manchester. But it reflects Secret
Cinema’s ethos of getting up and doing stuff,
and credit to Fabien for essentially risking his
brand with a very divisive political posture.”
Raising awareness for social issues is
perhaps Secret Cinema’s most hidden quality.
SECRET CINEMA/CAMILLA GREENWELL, © 1996 TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
50 THE RED BULLETIN