International Women's Day at Gloucester Guildhall Cinema

To celebrate International Women’s Day on Tuesday 8 March, Gloucester Guildhall Cinema will be playing host to a special performance by South African-British poet, writer and filmmaker, Thembe Mvula, starting at 7pm.

Thembe is an alum of the Roundhouse Poetry Collective, Barbican Young Poets, and the inaugural Obsidian Foundation retreat. Her work has been described as “having a profound ability to allow readers and listeners to exist in different places at the same time” (Bridget Minamore).  Thembe was a finalist in The Roundhouse poetry slam competition in 2017 and featured at Latitude festival in 2019. She has performed nationally and internationally, previously headlining at Uniqlo Tate Lates, Jawdance, and Oslo Afro Arts festival. Her TEDx talk has been translated into different languages including Mandarin and Cantonese .

Thembe explains “I will be performing poems that celebrate women, both in my life personally and in general, and poems that touch on the theme of vulnerability in line with breaking barriers.”

Following her live performance, there will be a preview screening of Clio Barnard's new film Ali & Ava (15). Director Clio Barnard explains “I wanted to explore what would happen if you took melodrama as a genre and applied it to a social-realist version of Bradford that’s based on real people? It’s an opportunity to think about what it means to be part of a community. There’s a lot of kindness, generosity and support in Bradford and I wanted to see that writ large on the big screen.”

Enveloped in music, humour and emotion, ALI & AVA is a heartfelt contemporary love story written and directed by BAFTA-nominated Clio Barnard (The Arbor, The Selfish Giant).

For further information and to buy tickets, visit www.gloucesterguildhall.co.uk.