A gala evening of film, music, special guests and discount copies of the sensational new book BOOM! The Exploding Cinema and the New London Underground Cinema Scene. BOOM! is the secret history of the Exploding Cinema told by its key activists. And in particular it is the history of the Exploding Collective, a unique experiment in total democracy, open access, collective ownership and voluntary action. For the last 3 decades, this unfunded gang of radical cinema activists have been staging regular monthly open access nights of short D.I.Y. underground film in pubs, clubs and squats across London; turning shabby interiors into temporary convivial utopias that seethe with multiple moving projections. They have screened thousands of short films and given thousands of filmmakers a live audience for their work. 

Using archive photos, artwork, posters, propaganda and eye witness testimony, BOOM! charts the emergence of the collective from the art squats of Brixton to international infamy, from the analog machines of the nineties to the contemporary digital online cinema. And although the key focus is the Exploding Cinema, this is also a history of the broader movement and includes material from numerous other groups and agents including MyEyesMyEyes, Omsk, the Halloween Society, Undercurrents, the Volcano! Film Festival, Kaos filmmgruppe and many others.