On Thursday 22 January, Bristol Bad Film Club screened Gymkata to a sold out crowd at the Southbank Club in Southville.

It’s January. Christmas is a foggy haze of cheap mulled wine and dodgy mince pies. Leftover Quality Street that nobody eats lay forlorn in the bottom of a monstrously oversized tin, and your decorations are crammed away in a box under the stairs. Your thoughts move to shifting that Christmas weight, and you look around at the various fitness regimes on offer.

At the Southbank Club on Thursday night you had a rich and varied choice. You could have gone to Krav Maga upstairs. A deadly martial art, it’s fierce and uncompromising and uses a lot of jumping around on the floorboards that can be heard in the room below. Or you could have gone Swing Dancing, except it had been moved to the school next door. (Sorry swing dancers.)

Or you could have joined in the crowd gathering for GYMKATA downstairs.

The skill of gymnastics.

The kill of karate.

The thrill of Bristol Bad Film Club.

Our first screening of 2015 was a showcase for American gymnast Kurt Thomas, as he attempts to survive The Game, the lethal course undergone by anyone trying to enter Parmistan. You can read our great interview with Kurt Thomas here, where he reveals some surprising facts about Gymkata. From the residents there already we can deduce a) that suspiciously not everyone has had to, as they seem quite unfit for such an event and b) why in god’s good name would anyone want to enter this country?

A mixed crowd of seasoned veterans and startled newcomers heralded this first screening of our third calendar year of operation.

Our next screening, a return to the insanity of THE ROOM, has already sold out, but you can still grab tickets to STREET FIGHTER, which we’re screening in Kong’s of King Street on March 22. Find out more info here, and go straight to grab your tickets here.

http://vimeo.com/117206509