Having already helped Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back return to the U.K. box office top 10 with its most recent immersive cinema experience (the film is currently number four in Britain’s box-office ranking), Secret Cinema on Monday launched its Secret Cinema X platform with a special screening of Amy, Asif Kapadia’s Amy Winehouse documentary.
Separate from its large-scale events, such as Star Wars and last year’s Back to the Future, which saw the latter film’s Hill Valley recreated over a vast site in East London, Secret Cinema’s X concept will screen cult classics and exclusive previews in the form of one-off events in secret locations.
For Amy, set for release in the U.K. on Friday, the screening took place in Camden, the London neighborhood where Winehouse lived and died. It was held at Koko, the nightclub where she had regularly performed. The venue was transformed into a jazz club called ‘Round Midnight, a name taken from the singer’s favorite track by Thelonious Monk. Her former band performed before and after the film.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in May, Secret Cinema founder Fabien Riggall said he hoped to bring Secret Cinema X to the U.S. later this year. “We’d go to various cities – secret cities in the U.S.,” he said, adding that he also wanted to use the platform to help promote smaller titles, such as Timbuktu and The Lobster.
The Back to the Future event, which welcomed an estimated 75,000 guests over more than 30 nights in the summer of 2014, is due to be transported to L.A. later this year for Secret Cinema’s U.S. debut. However, in keeping with the clandestine nature of it all, Riggall has yet to reveal exactly when and where.
