This format-breaking film, purely improvised and shot in 16mm on the streets of New York City using a volunteer cast and crew, is a time capsule of Beat generation urbanites. A jazz-scored, fast-paced flurry into the youth-driven bohemian culture of the city in the late 50s, it focuses on the romance between a light-skinned black woman Lelia (Lelia Goldoni) and a white man Tony (Anthony Ray), whose relationship is put in jeopardy when Tony meets Lelia’s jazz singer brother, and discovers her racial heritage is not what he thought it was. Shadows and its director John Cassavetes pioneered American independent cinema, and its spirit, influence and spontaneity have resonated through the work and attitudes of directors such as Martin Scorsese and Jim Jarmusch. Indeed, there would be no Mean Streets without it.

Ticket prices: £8.00 full / £6.50 concessions

Curated by Fern Dunn, a UWE MA Curation student on placement at Watershed.

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