Scalarama is a strange beast in the odd world of film festivals. Billed as “a celebration of cinema”, its screenings do not necessarily, or mainly, take place in cinemas. There are no awards or limousines, no jury and no star curator. Instead, dozens of autonomous groups and individuals choose films they want to show, organise the logistics of licenses and spaces, and use Scalarama as a framework to make their screenings more visible and more viable. In principle, anyone wanting to show films in the month of September can be part of the Scalarama programme. Given this openness, the spontaneous coherence of the festival speaks of a shared understanding, not always explicit but articulated by the history and networks through which Scalarama connects.