Home Manchester will host an International Women’s Weekender to mark International Women’s Day 2019 in March. The event forms part of the venue’s year-long Celebrating Women in Global Cinema programme running through 2019.
Home’s International Women’s Weekender takes place from 8-10 March and features a series of special events for all ages.
What’s on at Home Manchester’s International Women’s Weekender?
On Friday 8 March, The Kindergarten Teacher and Maiden will both open at Home Manchester. The two new cinema releases feature female-focussed stories. Maiden is the inspirational story of the first ever all-female sailing crew to enter the Whitbread Round the World Race, previously an exclusively masculine endeavour; and The Kindergarten Teacher is Sara Colangelo’s Sundance award-winning second-feature starring Maggie Gyllenhaal. The Kindergarten Teacher will feature a special introduction from Dr Kirsty Fairclough of the University of Salford, who looks at popular culture and gender representation. They will be accompanied by a special #WomenatHome Party and DJ set in the Downstairs Bar from Mancunian musician and DJ, Katbrownsugar.
On Saturday 9 March, HOME will host a full-day film course, open to all, exploring the work of inspirational female filmmaker Ida Lupino. From Hollywood star to a pioneering director and producer who took on the male-dominated Hollywood studio system, Lupino worked on more than 130 films and television programmes from 1931-1978 and was the first woman to direct a film noir (The Hitch-Hiker). The event includes a full screening of her 1949 feature Never Fear (aka The Young Lovers).
On Sunday 10 March, Home host a free event for all ages and genders. Showing that feminism isn’t just for grown-ups, Home’s Feminists of the Future Craft and Storytelling Event will include Suffragette sash-making with Mighty Heart Theatre and tales from Elena Favilli’s inspiring Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls alongside colouring and letter-writing stations plus a dressing up box and obligatory photobooth! Meanwhile in the cinemas, film fans can pay homage to the ultimate female heroine Ellen Ripley, in a 40th anniversary screening of Alien followed by a post-screening discussion on ‘Women in Sci-Fi’ led by Dr Amy Chambers, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at MMU.
The weekend is rounded off with a screening of Song of Lahore. The movie, presented in association with London Indian Film Festival, is co-directed by Oscar winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Pakistan’s first Academy Award Winner, alongside Andy Schocken. Songs of Lahore follows the dramatic journey of a group of Pakistani classical musicians whose unexpected jazz album brings international acclaim but who struggle to find an audience back home in a society roiled by social and religious upheaval.
When is Home Manchester’s International Women’s Weekender?
Home’s International Women’s Weekender runs from 8-10 March 2019.