Back to school cinema: CINE 26 picks

Heading into the new school year as a young person living in Sheffield, a Showroom Cinema CINE 26 card is as essential as a new notebook.

This free membership allows anyone aged 26 and under to beat the back-to-school blues with a range of cinema experiences for only £5 per ticket, plus extra benefits such as 20% off food and 10% off drinks in the Café Bar. You even get a free ticket on your birthday to look forward to!

The September film programme celebrates all aspects of cinema, allowing young people to get the cheapest tickets in the city to see everything from new releases, classics, and one-off events you won’t find anywhere else - for only £5!

The month opens with a romantic theme; the week of the 8 September includes steamy bisexual drama Passages and A24’s festival favourite Past Lives. For our Classics strand, we are showing the entirety of Richard Linklater’s beloved Before trilogy.

We continue to celebrate Linklater as a director with a retrospective called Lovers, Slackers and Rockers, with cult classic Dazed and Confused’s 30th anniversary screening all week from the 15 September and feel-good comedy School of Rock’s 20th anniversary from the 22 September.

The good vibes continue with comfort film double bill Mamma Mia! and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again on 17 and 18 September, plus a throwback screening of Twilight organised by the Showroom Young Programmers on 9 September.

Exclusive Q&A events include a visit from Babak Jalali, director of indie hit Fremont (22 September), and seminal Derbyshire-set thriller Dead Man’s Shoes celebrates its 20th birthday with a live interview with producer Mark Herbert of the Sheffield-based Warp Films (15 September).

Plus, the much-anticipated Strange Way of Life short film, starring Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke, comes to Showroom for one night only on Monday 25th September. Directed by Pedro Almodovar, the screening will be followed by a pre-recorded Q&A from the legendary Spanish filmmaker.

Our Showroom Classics strand includes queer masterpiece Lan Yu (from 17 September), the greatest concert film ever made Stop Making Sense, and 50th anniversary of unmissable horror The Exorcist, by the late great William Friedkin (both from 29 September).

Looking ahead to October, £5 tickets will even be available for the London Film Festival touring programme, allowing you to see even more unmissable films before anyone else.

If you or anyone in your life is under 26 and loves film, sign up for a free CINE 26 membership here: /cine26/

Follow us on Letterboxd to see bonus CINE 26 Picks and more: https://letterboxd.com/showroomcinema/list/cine26-picks-september/