I Like Killing Flies (+ Food Tasting)

Ecstatic Truths and Waltham Forest Cinema Project present a twentieth anniversary celebration of culinary doc classic I Like Killing Flies, with your chance to get a taste of iconic New York restaurant Shopsins. We’ll be serving up Kenny Shopsin’s iconic Chilli Mac after the screening and raising a glass to an under-recognised icon of food culture.

About I Like Killing Flies:

In this underseen gem of a documentary, Kenny Shopsin is the proprietor, chef and curmudgeon-in-chief at New York deli restaurant Shopsins. For decades Kenny has been serving up wild, iconic food creations that are comfort food by way of a stoner’s ambrosia, with Jewish, Senegalese, Mexican, Chinese inflected dishes somehow making it out of the world’s tiniest kitchen. Despite – or because of – his cranky edge, Shopsin’s restaurant has become a central part of Greenwich Village, a warm family table in what can be a lonely city. But when their landlord turfs them out and Shopsins has to relocate after 30 years, can the vibe survive the tide of gentrification?

I Like Killing Flies is a hilariously unfiltered portrait of the unlikely spaces that make a community worth living in, and the people who make it up. See the UK premiere of the new twentieth anniversary restoration and discover the mad recipes and madder life philosophy of a New York institution.

5PM – Join us for beers and a signature Shopsins-inspired cocktail

6PM – Screening

7:30PM – To those who want to get a taste of Shopsins, Chef Sammy (Slowburn, Mamapen) will be serving up a hearty snack serving of Kenny Shopsin’s legendary Chilli Mac. Join us for more drinks in the Good Shepherd annex.

About the food

The Chilli Mac is a combination of Shopsin's signature chilli and their righteous mac and cheese. We hope it gives you a little taste of what it's like to visit Shopsins. The Chilli Mac is veggie friendly. It’ll be a large snack size. Please let us know of any allergies if you book a ticket with food.

I Like Killing Flies (2004) / Matt Mahurin / 80 mins / Advised 15 certificate

This event is a collaboration between Waltham Forest Cinema Project and Ecstatic Truths.
To read more about Waltham Forest Cinema Project, click here.
Ecstatic Truths is a film programming collective curated by Charlotte Ross (she/her) and Kat Haylett (she/her) that showcases documentaries which reject the purely factual, exploring reinvention and subversion of the genre. To read more about Ecstatic Truths Doc Club, click here.