Scotland Film Event Highlights – May 2015

Every month the Cameo in Edinburgh brings a great selection of cult and classic films back to the big screen. Top picks this month include slacker favourite Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (11 May) and Fellini's Oscar-winning avant garde masterpiece 8½ (17 May). If you only have time to see one retrospective this month, however, see Freaks (24 May)! Famous for destroying director Tod Browning's career and being banned for over thirty years in Britain, this tale of love, murder, and betrayal at the circus is a must-see.

The GFT in Glasgow, in association with Monorail Film Club, is hosting the Scottish premiere of St Etienne Live: How We Used to Live (19 May). A collaboration between the electro pop group and British director Paul Kelly, the documentary features archive footage of London from the 1950s-80s set to an enigmatic score by the band. St Etienne will be performing at the event, playing a selection of new and old hits.

Guests are invited to dress in their finest attire for Club Noir's latest film screenings at the Grosvenor in Glasgow. This is cinema at its most sexy and glamorous, presented by the world's largest burlesque club. Two films are being shown on 29 May: classic noir Gilda, featuring Hollywood sex bomb Rita Hayworth as the ultimate femme fatale caught between two men; and Paul Verhoeven's neo-noir erotic thriller Basic Instinct, most notorious for revealing a bit more of Sharon Stone than expected in that leg-crossing scene.

Punk fans should head to the CCA in Glasgow (10 May) for a free, ticketed screening of The Clash: Westway to the World. This Grammy award-winning documentary by long-time friend and collaborator Don Letts, who has made a career out of making punk-inspired movies, features archive footage, exclusive interviews and filmed performances. The result is the most comprehensive portrait of the iconic British band. The screening, organised by Love Music Hate Racism, will be followed by a panel discussion with local activists and trade unionists.

Sticking with the punk theme, the DCA in Dundee is showing Liquid Sky (24 May), a punk/new-wave play on science fiction starring Anne Carlisle as both a bisexual female and a drug-addicted male model. Featuring invisible aliens who land on top of an apartment block in New York in search of heroin, only to discover that human pheromones created during orgasm provide a more potent hit, this is a low-budget, weird and wonderful movie.