Monday, 8 March, marks International Women’s Day, and we don’t want to miss an opportunity to shine a light on women in film. Showroom Cinema is an F-Rated cinema – meaning we highlight films in our programme that are made by, or about women. We’re also accredited Investors in Diversity and a partner of Bird’s Eye View’s Reclaim the Frame (RTF) initiative, which aims to bring ever-greater audiences to films by women.

This March, we’re working on two titles with RTF, one thrilling female-directed feature, and one incredible doc that’s more widely available, if you’re not a subscriber. Don’t forget, we’re still running our partner offer with MUBI, so if you sign up to support Showroom Cinema with a paid membership, you’ll get three months of MUBI for free.

Cathy Yan’s directorial debut Dead Pigs made waves on the festival circuit in 2018, (including the UK’s London Film Festival and USA’s Sundance) but never reached cinemas here. Yan was later picked up by Disney/Marvel to direct Birds of Prey, which was released in 2020 (Disney regularly select up-and-coming indie directors for their major studio pictures, including the likes of Chloe Zhao, Ryan Coogler & Taika Waititi). As people are becoming more aware of Yan’s work, there’s a newfound interest in her debut, and thankfully, Dead Pigs has been picked up by MUBI. Don’t be put off by its title; this is a delightfully absurd social satire. The RTF team, also managed to catch up with Yan and conduct an exclusive interview, which is available on YouTube and makes a fab follow up to the film.

For the punks and music aficionados amongst us, we’re also partnered with RTF on the release of Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliché, which will be available to rent on the Modern Films platform. This new documentary follows the life of punk icon Poly Styrene, frontwoman for X-Ray Spex – and the first British woman of colour to front a successful rock band. It’s also produced by one of Sheffield’s own – Rebecca Mark Lawson, who heads up award-winning film production company Tyke Films.

Also screening on Modern Films is a specially curated programme from Feminista Film Festival, focussing on adventurous women outdoors. This programme features inspiring and exciting short films about women hiking, climbing, fishing, swimming, farming, canoeing and lots more. Plus, any films rented through Modern Film’s platform provide the option to support Showroom Cinema with 50% of the fee coming directly to us.

This article first featured in the Sheffield Telegraph on Thursday 4 March 2021.