A Room of One's Own + Q&A @the Rio Cinema
To kick off International Women's Month and in partnership with the Women’s Prize Trust and the Rio Cinema, we’re delighted to be bringing you the big screen premiere of our tribute to Virginia Woolf’s iconic work, A Room of One’s Own, followed by a discussion on all the ways it still resonates today.
Woolf’s 1928 feminist polemic explores the silence and erasure of women's voices from literature throughout the centuries and considers the conditions a writer needs to thrive and become great. Funny, sharp and insightful, it is a powerful call for women's creative and intellectual freedom.
Originally made for the London Library Lit Fest in May 2021 and filmed in the atmospheric spaces of The London Library, where Woolf, a long-standing member, would once have browsed the book stacks, Charlotte Westenra directs actors Nina Sosanya, Colin Tierney and Sophie Melville in Linda Marshall Griffiths’ stunning dramatic adaptation* of this ground-breaking work, with music by Kate Marlais.
Following the screening, Linda Marshall Griffiths joins novelist Abi Daré, writer Scarlett Curtis, actor Ophelia Lovibond and Head of Programmes at The London Library, Claire Berliner, for a panel discussion about the film, its source material and how women writers – and the Women’s Prize Trust – are addressing the still ongoing issues Virginia Woolf raised almost a whole century ago.
The film begins at 7pm but drinks, snacks, merch and general chat will be available from 6.15pm.
Scarlett Curtis is a writer, activist, and journalist. She has published two Sunday Times bestselling books and is the co-founder of the activist collective, The Pink Protest. In November 2019 Scarlett Curtis was awarded the Changemaker Award for young activists presented by Equality Now. She is a UN Women UK advocate and sits on the advisory board for Gucci’s Chime for Change. She is a trustee of the Women's Prize Trust.
Abi Daré is the author of The Girl with the Louding Voice, which was a New York Times bestseller and was shortlisted for several awards, including the Desmond Elliott Prize and The British Book Awards. She was a judge for the Women's Prize for Fiction Discoveries Prize and a member of the inaugural cohort of The London Library Emerging Writers Programme.
Linda Marshall Griffiths is an award-winning playwright writing stories exploring environment and equality. Current work includes three series of the BBC podcast, No Place But the Water, and a binaural climate piece, Strings, for Radio 3. She has both adapted and reimagined multiple classic texts and is currently working on a new version of Trojan Women. She has a PhD on silence.
Ophelia Lovibond is an English actor known for her roles in BBC’s W1A, Netflix’s Feel Good, CBS’s Elementary and, most recently, This England, in which Ophelia starred opposite Kenneth Branagh as Boris Johnson’s then fiancée, Carrie Symonds. Last year, Ophelia starred in erotic comedy, Minx, which aired in the UK on Paramount +. Set in 1970s Los Angeles, Ophelia plays an earnest young feminist who ends up creating the first erotic magazine for women.
The Women's Prize Trust champions positive change in the world through books by women. The registered charity behind the Women's Prize for Fiction, the greatest celebration of women's creativity in the world, we empower all women to raise their voice and own their story, regardless of their background.
The Rio Cinema is an independent Grade II listed, Art Deco cinema in Dalston, east London, with a rich 100-year history and a vibrant film and events programme.
*An audio version of this dramatisation was first broadcast on BBC Radio Four in 2020. Thank you to Nadia Molinari who directed the first production.
N.B. This event will take place in person at the Rio Cinema, 107 Kingsland High St, London E8 2PB.
