As Manchester Film Festival 2021 kicks off, Alex King spoke to Manchester-based filmmakers Charlie Watts, Jason Wingard, Mike Ogden and Kieran Stringfellow about their films which are on show at the festival.
‘Celebrating Syria: A Festival of Arts and Culture’ showcases Syria beyond the war- torn media depiction
Syria is the focus of this art festival, organised by Manchester charity Rethink Rebuild Society, which aims to provide an escape from the oppression of the pandemic and celebrate the culture and people of this currently troubled country.
Manchester’s laid-off theatre & event workers are retraining to tackle the climate crisis
An ambitious new project is addressing pandemic induced job loss while boosting the retrofit sector in Greater Manchester. Nick Prescott visits a home undergoing retrofitting works to learn more.
Outpouring of love for Nexus Art Cafe as Covid forces its closure
Nexus Art Cafe, after shutting its doors in March for the Covid-19 lockdown, announced on Monday it would not reopen. Patrons and supporters of the not-for-profit arts and events space reacted with dismay but also love, recounting their memories in the venue and offering their thanks to the Nexus team. Nexus announced the closure via […]
EARTS Fete 2020: celebrating European art and artists in Manchester
The UK may have left Europe but Manchester is standing by its Europeans with this eclectic city centre arts fete, hosted by EARTS, exhibiting the best of European artists living in Greater Manchester. Europia Art Collective are to celebrate their first birthday in Manchester this weekend with a pop up event at Whitworth Locke on […]
SwitchMCR brings a dystopian vision of 2020 to Manchester in new play ‘We Won’t Fall’
Local theatre company SwitchMCR are bringing their new production, ‘We Won’t Fall’ to the International Athony Burgess Foundation this month. Imagine a world very different from the one we live in today. A world where music and free speech are censored, and a battle is waged to keep the community spirit alive in the face […]
There’s a reason why you don’t see many black and ethnic minority faces in cultural spaces
Roaa Ali, a research associate at the University of Manchester, investigates the issues around ethnic inequalities in the arts, where BAME people are underrepresented in the creation and consumption of artistic work. Guest article from The Conversation. Have you ever been to the theatre, looked around, and thought about how predominantly white the audience is? […]
Manchester Momentum have built a ‘durable institutional left’ in the North West
In the run up to the 2019 General Election Manchester Momentum have proved to be the largest political mobiliser in the North West. The secret to their success is their cultural strategy, says Andrea Sandor. In August, three months before the election was announced, Manchester Momentum took a gamble. They printed pledge cards that read […]
Review: BBC series Years and Years
Every so often a show seems destined to become the king of workplace chat, something with such universal appeal that it becomes the perfect icebreaker for those awkward moments you’re forced to talk to that guy you’ve worked with for 6 months but somehow never spoken to. For a long time Game of Thrones held […]
Podcast Review of One at HOME Manchester
“Nasi is on a ladder. Heʼs not coming down any time soon”. As we file into the theatre Nasi is there in front of us, standing high up on the very tall ladder. His demeanor is casual and relaxed but unconvincing. This tense sight amplified by the sense that we had intruded midway through a […]