White Wall Cinema: DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN

Celebrating 17 years of Brighton’s favourite 80s party and the city’s longest running weekly club night (Every Saturday at Green Door Store) ‘It Is Still 1985’ is marking both their own longevity and the fact that the year they are named after (1985) is now exactly 40 years ago by teaming up with us at White Wall Cinema to create a new movie club for 2025 that screens a selection of movies celebrating their 40th anniversary on a limited number of select dates across this year.

A bonafide member of the first wave of American 80s-era independent filmmakers, Susan Siedelman was just coming down from the success of her first film ‘Smithereens’ (the first American independent film to be selected for competition at Canne) a gritty and humorous look at New York’s Bohemian post-punk music scene, when she stumbled upon her next film and truly captured pop culture lightning in a bottle. Against the studios wishes she refused a who’s who list of stars lined up for the film’s lead roles opting instead to cast two unknowns in the shape of Rosanna Arquette and Siedelman’s neighbour at the time Madonna. Arquette of course would go on to be a major movie star (credits include Scorsese’s After Hours, Besson’s The Big Blue, Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and Cronenberg’s Crash) but it was Madonna, still exuding the hyper cool of New York street fashion, cool in a way that only a newly minted popstar on the verge of mega-fame can be, that set audiences alight in 1985. 

• DOORS: 7.50pm*
• START TIME: 8.30pm*
• RUN TIME: 104 mins
• CERT: 15 (Under 16’s must be accompanied by an adult).