Vagrancy Films was conceived in 2003 as a theatrical extension of my very un-successful "JESS FEST" events. Whenever my wife would take the kids out of town I would email my friends to inform them of the fact that I would be screening 2-3 Jess Franco films in my basement. The 2 Jess Fest's on record yielded a whopping attendance of only 4 guests.

It was a few months later Cliff Mcintyre and myself were walking around downtown London saw the old Capital Theatre and got to talking about the old days. We were both born and raised in London  and could still remember vividly the days of Grindhouses, and Drive In theatres that once thrived in this ultra conservative city. A young boy could open the Saturday Paper and get an eye opening dose of sleaze, and cheese that played day in and day out.

The 70s and 80s were VERY over and London was now forced to take it up the corker from Big Box Movie chains. 

For this reason we asked ourselves "What would it take to rent an actual theatre and play a movie with some fucking balls ? " So we started the process....

I had done some conventions in the states selling DVDs and my table neighbors were a company called Media Blasters. When you spend three days on your feet standing up beside someone you basically feel like you grew up with these people. I knew that Media Blasters had some 35mm prints in particular Lucio Fulci's epic "ZOMBIE" so I made the call and got the go ahead from them to have a screening here in Canada. We had the movie...now we just needed a theatre. The process of finding a cinema to rent us space had begun.

First up...The Hyland an incredible single screen venue located in South London. Were they interested ???? NOPE

Then came the Rainbow Cinema....Now I had basically lived at the Rainbow when it was the Odeon Galleria, but several years later the Odeon became victim to London's love for downtown avoidance and it went tits up. Soon after it's closure the Western Canada based Rainbow Chain came in. They added 2 more screens and offered Londoners a chance to see 2nd run movies @ dirt cheap prices.

Cliff suggested that we try the Rainbow since he had been to some shows there where he was the only cat in the audience. I was game and we soon set up a meeting to scope the place out. Now keep in mind we were both Greener than Green , and I can just imagine what the theatre manager and the projectionist were thinking as we were pitching them this idea.   Right out of the gate we said..."Ok you need to play these trailers before the movie" Then switch to film " You see in those days we had nothing. I would make trailer reels on DVD in my living room in their pixilated glory.

With the movie and now a theatre to play it in we had 2 months to spam the show. The miracle of our first show was it's promotion was totally grass roots. No web site, No Facebook, or Myspace the event was leaked entirely via email spam, and old school posters on poles. In the end we ended up with over 240 asses in the seats and an full fledge addiction to screenings.

As of April 2008 Vagrancy Films has been involved in 40 sanctioned events and screened close to 100 films. We all still hold day jobs and lose money more times than not but we can't bring ourselves to turn the lights off just yet.

Finally I have to thank each and every patron that's been to one of our events (including the walk outs) Good or bad I know for a that we were responsible for leaving you with some wild memories. Movies should always be this funHL    HL   HL HL HL HL  HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL