Underwire Festival

We are delighted to this year be supporting Underwire Festival, sponsoring their Best Actor Award, generating discussion around the under-representation of women in the arts with a hope to improve this. 

This year, 500 films were submitted, from which 70 have been selected for the festival. Casting assistant Sarah Wilson judged the Best Actor award and the winner will be announced on 3^rd December at Genesis Cinema. The nominees are: 

Angela Wynter, Fiona O'Shaughnessy, Verity Henry, Francesca Fowler, Bryony Afferson, Alexandra Roach, Lydia Rose Bewley, and Ciara Gallagher.

Underwire is the UK’s only film festival celebrating female film-making talent across the crafts. Founded in 2010 by Gabriella Apicella and Gemma Mitchell with the aim to change the face of the industry from the inside out, the festival has awarded training and mentoring opportunities to over 40 filmmakers, and has screened over 300 films.

The festival recognises talent across directing, producing, screenwriting, editing, cinematography, sound design, and composing, and any short film that has a woman in one of those roles is eligible. With women making up only 21.8%* of a typical feature film crew it is clear that these talents must be showcased early, to propel the women filmmakers of the future into their feature film careers.

With a clear objective to improve the statistics in front and behind camera, there are also awards for female crew members Under 25, actors, and for onscreen representation with the XX Award, that is open to all films that foreground female characters and stories from filmmakers of any gender. Also highlighted are the representation of women on screen with Girls on Film - an annual day of discussions presented in partnership with Little White Lies.

Support the festival and come along to one of the great events: 

The Levelling + Q&A with writer/director Hope Dickson Leach and producer Rachel Robey http://bit.ly/TheLevelling  

Debuts - a curated selection of early short films by directors like Andrea Arnold, Lynne Ramsay, Carol Morley http://bit.ly/UWDebuts  

Red Road 10th Anniversary screening on 35mm - with a powerhouse performance by Kate Dickie! http://bit.ly/RedRoad35mm