Film
Suffragette + panel discussion
- Director
- Sarah Gavron
- Certificate
- 12A
- Running Time
- 106 mins
Hot from being a rock chick in Ricki and the Flash, Meryl Streep became Emmeline Pankhurst in this 2015 feminist prestige drama. Appropriately, it’s an all-woman endeavour, directed by Sarah (Brick Lane) Gavron and written by Abi Morgan, whose previous subjects have included such neglected female historical figures as Charles Dickens’ secret lover Nelly Ternan (The Invisible Woman) and, um, Margaret Thatcher (The Iron Lady). The story centres on the struggle for the right to vote waged by working class women who were inspired by Pankhurst – chiefly Carey Mulligan‘s housewife Maud, who defies hubby Ben Whishaw to become a bomb planting, street rioting radical. Fascinating fact: this is the first film ever to be given permission to shoot in the Houses of Parliament.
It’s back on screen for International Women’s Day, followed by a panel discussion about women’s influence in the community chaired by Lynne Franks OBE, who’s billed here as a “change maker, activist and influencer” but is perhaps better known to the less high-minded among us as the inspiration for Edina in AbFab. Bristolians on the panel include Kalpna Woolf (91 Ways to build a Global City) and Deasy Bamford (Tribe of Doris).
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