Weird Weekend 2024 - The reading list
Our library shelves are weighed heavy with film books but the reading list we’re writing about today outweighs anything we’ve offered up yet - welcome to the Weird Weekend reading list!
For those of you not in the know, Weird Weekend is Glasgow’s renowned cult film festival whose own tagline captures their ethos better than anything I could produce - “strange and unseen cinema from around the world, celebrating the film world’s orphans, outcasts and outliers”. To further cement that tagline as gospel, just look at this year’s incredible programme, which includes the 4K restoration world premiere of Treasure Island starring Nick Offerman; Warhol superstar Holly Woodlawn taking the lead in Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers; and a yet to be revealed Weird Weekend Wildcard screening!
The first full day of the festival, Saturday 26th October, starts with adaptations of Hungarian author Antal Szerb’s short stories Love in a Bottle (the film adaptation is called The Loves of a Dilettante) and The Pendragon Legend. This is followed up by a new 4K restoration of Scott King’s Treasure Island which was inspired by Ewan Montagu’s The Man Who Never Was which tell the true story of Operation Mincemeat. The film follows two intelligence officers living on San Francisco's Treasure Island Naval base, who are tasked to compose letters to plant on a dead body in order to help spread misinformation in Japanese war efforts. Director Scott King will be at the screening in-person taking questions on the day!
Later on Saturday afternoon, the programme brings you a screening of Robert J. Kaplan’s Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers and stars Holly Woodlawn in dual roles! The film was down to a sole print and rescued and restored recently by The Academy Film Archive, meaning this an extremely rare opportunity to catch a screening. This screening is made all the more special by being introduced by TGirlsOnFilm’s Jaye Hudson, who received Trasho Bilblio’s Research Grant earlier this year. To get you in the mood, we recommend you read more about Woodlawn’s extraordinary life in Jeff Copeland’s incredibly named biography A Low Life in High Heels. The book covers her array of film & tv appearances and lengthy cabaret career, and features appearances from Jackie Curtis, Lou Reed and Andy Warhol.
As Saturday night rolls in, Weird Weekend really highlight why they’re the best film exhibitioners around with an incredible selection for festival attendees. The Weird Weekend Wildcard (a secret screening), filmmaker-writer Louise Weard will be screening the world premiere of Castration Movie, and then the night finishes with Weard presenting an hour of “couldn’t, wouldn’t or shouldn’t screen” footage which has been curated exclusively for Weird Weekend! The footage will be presented during the hour the clocks go back, so it’ll end at the time it started…just like it never happened! Weird Weekend has triumphed before it’s even started in highlighting trans cinema and auteurs. To dig deeper into this topic, we recommend Corpses, Fools and Monsters by Caden Mark Gardner & Willow Catelyn Mackay, an incredible past, present and future look at radical trans image in film.
Probably one of the most quoted names in American literature is Charles Willeford and his writing sets the backdrop for some of Sunday’s Weird Weekend programme. Willeford’s 1960 crime novel The Woman Chaser was adapted to film in the late 90’s, with the smooth talking car salesman protagonist played by Patrick Warburton (Family Guy, Seinfeld). Throughout the entire festival, Weird Weekend have curated a No-Film shorts programme which includes a short discussion how a huge wave of Hungarian cinema has lost or destroyed, a look at the never to be released Batgirl film that was filmed in Glasgow and short doc Cockfighter which will hear from author Kier-La Janisse discussing her new book Cockfight: A Fable of Failure. This offers us insight into Monte Hellman’s Cockfighter film (based on a book of the same name by Willeford) - a film still illegal to screen in the UK. If you have ever been lucky enough to read Kier-La’s other writing (including the incredible House of Psychotic Women) then you know this is a must attend event.
This reading list (full list can be found here) only scratches the surface of what Weird Weekend has to offer. Words can’t capture the delights and, at times, horror you’ll catch over the 3 days. Sean and Megan have delivered so many incredible film projects over the years and their events just keep getting better. Not only are they pioneers in bringing programming of this quality to Glasgow but also in their approach to accessibility, with all of the Weird Weekend programme being presented with descriptive subtitles and optional audio description. Absolute legends.
As well as curating and delivering this dynamite film programme, Weird Weekend have kindly sponsored FIVE Trasho Biblio memberships. These will be distributed on a first come, first served basis. All you have to do is complete this form.
WEIRD WEEKEND 2024 is taking place Friday 25th to Sunday 27th of October at OFFLINE, Glasgow. Full programme and tickets can be found here.