Hub Westminster and Open City London Documentary Festival invite you to a special screening and discussion to mark International Women’s Day 2012 at Hub Westminster screening room.

Thursday 8 March 2012 @ 18.30

Hub Westminster

First Floor, New Zealand House

80 Haymarket

London SW1Y 4TE

http://hubwestminster.net/

www.opencitylondon.com

Admission is free, but you must book your place in advance. Please sign up via Eventbrite

At Hub Westminster we’re always trying to host the conversations that matter. Our ambition is to inspire and support imaginative and enterprising initiatives for a better world and to host a global community of people from every profession, background and culture working at 'new frontiers' to tackle the world's most pressing challenges.

March 8^th is a global day to do just that. International Women’s day celebrates the groundbreaking work of the Suffragettes who campaigned for women's right to vote. It is a day to celebrate the success of women everywhere, but also a day to put a spotlight on inequities still to be addressed: two-thirds of all children denied school are girls and women still hold only 14% of the world’s parliamentary seats. In the UK same-sex couples are not allowed to marry and while same-sex couples are lawfully allowed to adopt, the realities of the process remain challenging. Hub Westminster and Open City London Documentary Festival are thrilled to invite you to join us in giving voice to issues of gender that tend to get lost or forgotten on all the other days of the year.

Programme:

12.30-14.00: #HubIWD lunch special by Made In Marylebone and the Hub LGBT Circle

Your chance to get a bit of brainfood with your plate of salad. Having launched Munch - a little catering business with big dreams - early last year, Naomi Smith has now joined forces with an inspiring group of women to create Munch in Marylebone, a one-of-a-kind catering social enterprise, right here in Westminster. Munch in Marylebone is a new venture for the Marylebone Project which, since 1996, has worked with over 7000 homeless, or at risk of becoming homeless women, to empower them towards independent living. Every week, the women of Munch create delicious, high quality meals for the Hub Westminster and beyond. Munch in Marylebone will be cooking and serving at this member-curated lunch, hosted by the Hub LGBT Circle (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender, for those not in on the feminist lingo), providing thought provoking conversation to go with your meal.

Tickets are free, but Munch in Marylebone’s lunch is £6 for non Hub members, £5.50 for Hub members.

17.00-17.45: Introducing the #Nomos (the Not-mothers)

Talk + Q&A with Jody Day, Founder of Gateway Women

1 in 5 women are now reaching menopause without having children - the largest cohort of childless women since the post WW1 years. Yet our culture's idea of what these women 'are for' is similarly stuck in the past. Whether a woman has chosen to be 'childfree' or finds herself 'childless by circumstance', she is marginalised, misunderstood and misrepresented in our culture.

There have probably never been so many liberated, educated, intelligent, self-aware and motivated women in their 40s and 50s alive at one time and free from bringing up children. Gateway Women’s mission is to encourage these women to embrace their new identity as #nomos (not-mothers) and get back out into the world and make it a better place for everyone’s children to inherit!

18.30: #HubIWD film screening in partnership with Open City London Documentary Festival

Partnering with Open City London Documentary Festival, we'll be screening 4 short documentaries that deal with gender and sexuality, but in very different ways. The screening will be followed by an open discussion with filmmakers Timothy Ahrensbach, Amy Rose and Farinaz Nikbakht and Treasa O’Brien, Producer and Programmer of Open City London Documentary Festival.

Home for the Golden Gays

Nola Grace Gaardmand, Timothy Ahrensbach & Dennis Lehmann, 2011, 13mins

The story of a special place, a home for elderly gay men in Manila, Filipines. Meet Leony, who spent most of his life as a prostitute for the American soldiers, Frederica who was abandoned by his mother for being too ‘girly’ and Semmy who spent his whole life hiding his sexuality.

ZAN

Farinaz Nikbakht, 2005, 9min

Three Iranian women of contrasting ages, life-style and background speak candidly about their individual lives and personal stories as they tell us how they freed themselves from oppression. Contrary to common belief, these women are not victims but fighters.

Dyketactics

Barbara Hammer, 1974, 4mins

Barbara Hammer said recently in her major Tate Modern retrospective that Dyketactics is the first ever lesbian film showing lesbians made by a lesbian. Hammer has made films with what she calls a lesbian or queer aesthetic and has been documenting women and lesbian communities with experimental film techniques for 40 years.

Twinset

Amy Rose, 2010, 12mins

Tea and cake, stilettos and gentle murmurs; old ladies in an Essex church welcome a towering transvestite into their midst. But families ask questions that polite old ladies do not dare; this is an observational film about courage, family and the cost of being happy.

With thanks to the filmmakers for permission to screen their films for this event.

Open City London Documentary Festival takes place 21-24 June 2012 in multiple venues in and around UCL in the heart of London: www.opencitylondon.com

Tickets are free but spaces are limited.