Onwards and Outwards: I am Dora and She Shark Industries presents “The cinema exists to please women.”

"Now one thing never to be lost sight of in considering the cinema is that it exists to please women. Three out of every four of all cinema audiences are women." Iris Barry 1926

"I am located in the margin. I make a definite distinction between that marginality which is imposed by oppressive structures and that marginality one chooses as a site of resistance – as location of radical openness and possibility." bell hooks 1996

Barry’s maxim that the cinema exists to please women was based on both the predominantly female audience make-up and the social standing of cinema in its early days. In the 90 years since her writing, cultural ideas about the value of film have shifted, and while UK cinema audiences are 51% female, it seems the pleasures of the cinematic space have been profoundly re-gendered.

If female pleasure has been relegated to the margins of the cinematic space, then how can the female, WOC or queer curator take up feminist activist bell hooks’ challenge and “choose the margins as a space for radical openness”?

Join Kate Taylor (She Shark Industries) and Jemma Desai (I am Dora) and guests as we check the pulse of current curatorial activity in the UK and ask: are we witnessing a new curatorial shift; dropping the deadening language of auteurism and pioneering a more searching cinephile activism?

A night of sharing fierce curatorial adventures that have showcased female authored work and imagining the radical possibilities for the future.

Confirmed contributors include:

Chardine Taylor-Stone — Activist, writer, artist, DJ
David Edgar  —  BFI Education
Helen Mackenzie  — DVD Bang
Jo Duncombe  —  The Quarter Club, LSFF, Birds Eye View
Sophie Brown —  Electric Bijou Empire Forever
Shanida Scotland —  BBC Storyville / Cyberfeminist
Maria Cabrera — Reel Good Film Club

Season Multi-Buy Offer: 
Attend 2-4 events for £8 per screening
Attend 5 or more events for £7 per screening

Onwards and Outwards is a nationwide programme of screenings, talks, and events, which aims to establish a dialogue around the conditions of production that women face when attempting to use the moving image as a means of expression.

Join in the conversation on social media with #OnwardsOutwards

Onwards and Outwards is made possible with support from the BFI, awarding funds from The National Lottery.