For a city with a rich cinematic history, Brighton is not blessed with many independent cinemas so Scalarama film festival has created some new ones including in the charming surrounds of Fabrica.

This year’s festival focuses heavily on groundbreaking realist filmmaker Shirley Clarke opening with her portrayal of a 1960s gang of street thugs The Cool World.

This is the world of The Wire 50 years before, a world where young boys play a dangerous man’s game believing only violence earns respect.

The film depicts slum residents for whom other parts of this unequal city such as Wall Street, where they visit on a school trip, and the beach, where gang leader Duke takes his girl Luanne, are foreign countries closed to them through poverty and racism.

Their world is a few blocks of the Harlem slum – a wild place where feral dogs roam and where all of life happens in the street because it’s preferable to their cramped, damp homes.

Clarke’s dance training is evident in a balletic street fight played out in almost silence but for enhanced noises of blows struck while a jazz soundtrack featuring trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie brings real tempo to chase scenes and bends the rhythm of the dialogue around it.

The screening was a fitting reminder of a forgotten talent and the festival promises many more eye-openers before September is out.

Three stars