Rainbow Noir – Andro & Eve

We won an Award!! Last month at Cinema For All’s 2018 Film Society of the Year Awards we won in the BEST SINGLE EVENT category for our screening themed around Sekiya Dorsett’s film THE REVIVAL: WOMEN AND THE WORD. You can read more about what happened at that event in January 2018 on our blog here.

42806092620_07b328d612_h — *Andro & Eve co-founders Rhiannon and Katherine with the award!*

We’re really grateful to Cinema for All for this award – Thank you! Big thanks also to Jade Foster and Sekiya Dorsett for making this brilliant film. We want to say a huge thank you to Ella Otomewo Poet and DYLEMA for performing their poetry at our event, and massive love to Rainbow Noir and Our Mel who we collaborated with in creating the night. Finally, our sincerest thanks to our amazing volunteers who help us run special events like this, and you, our audience, for supporting what we do. Here’s to more awesome film screenings in future!

_V3A4762 — *Ella Otomewo performs at the event ‘ The Revival: Women and the Word’ January 2018*

On Saturday 27 January we curated and produced a special event in Sheffield focused around the film, The Revival: Women and The Word, directed by Sekiya Dorsett. We originally saw this documentary at SQIFF in 2016 and fell for its warmth, humour, honesty, and unique perspective on an often overlooked part of the LGBTQIA community. The film follows a group of Black lesbian poets on a salon style tour of the US organised by creative force and entrepreneur Yaani Supreme fka Jade Foster.

Revival_6 — *Jonquille Rice aka Solsis and Bea Steadwell. Credit: The Revival: Women and the Word*

Documentaries like this allow you to imagine a different world, one where Black, queer womanhood is centered, celebrated and given space to breathe. We felt it was important to not only show the film, but make sure the Black British community was celebrated, while giving our audience a taste of the talent that exists within the UK, by showcasing poets of colour on this side of the Atlantic.

To do this we worked closely with Manchester’s Rainbow Noir and Sheffield’s Our Mel to programme artists, and help Andro and Eve reach new audiences. We cannot praise Rainbow Noir’s organisers enough for their generosity and support of our aims for this event. It was also awesome to work with another grassroots organisation in Sheffield, through Our Mel, and realise we have many of the same ambitions of creating special events where our communities feel free to express themselves.

As massive lovers of zines and indie publishing we also curated a stall selling the words of women of colour.

The event sold out a week in advance, and on the night over 70 people from across the UK turned out to our specially chosen, (and secret) Sheffield venue to enjoy the evening. As ever, we were thrilled that so many people had made the journey out on a cold night to attend, and we want to say thank you for those who supported our work in this way.

_V3A4588 — *Some of our wonderful audience!*

Thanks also to all the people who have been contributing to our accessible ticket fund. This was the first event where we were able to offer discounted ticket prices for those on low incomes, and we can say it certainly encouraged some new faces to attend.

_V3A4818 — *DYLEMA (Do You. Let Every Man Adapt).*

The poets, Ella Otomewo, from Manchester and DYLEMA from East London, performed their captivating poems after the film, making quite an impression on our audience and us. It was so rewarding to listen to the comments from those that had gathered together for this event, and realise the hard work had paid off.

We’ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking, but special thanks should go to Rainbow Noir, Our Mel, LAS Sheffield, QTIPOC Notts, Enjoy Your Homes Press, our fabulous volunteers, and last but no means least, photographer Ndrika Anyika, whose images you see in this post.