Glamourous and gritty, Hell for Leather is anything but conventional opera on film. Dominik Scherrer revisits Ihe classic tale of Satan's fall from Heaven. Filmed on location in London's East End, Scherrer shot the film in three weeks and chose to record the actors singing live. With sharp edits and stylised visuals, the film is a thrilling, visceral vision of Heaven, Hell and Earth. A leering, peroxide blonde Satan leads his Mad Max style gang of fallen angels roaring through the streets, gunning their hi-powered engines in pursuit of cowardly priests. Satan shows the way in excess at bacchanalian S&M parties and finally confronts a balding, paunchy Jesus in the streets for an apocalyptic showdown.

Quite deliberately, the production violently pits the sacred (the form of traditional opera) against the profane (its grimy, post-grunge setting). In spite of its short running time, Hell for Leather packs a punch that has already sent waves through the opera world, and in many ways leaves Baz Luhrmann's Romeo & Juliet (1996) choking on exhaust fumes. Having already screened at numerous film festivals across Europe, the film was recently awarded the Grand Prix at Nevers Film Festival in France.