05/10/2015 - The third film by Sarah Gavron, starring Carey Mulligan and Helena Bonham Carter, depicts the struggle of women in London in the early 20th century and the persecution they were subjected to

Suffragette [+see also:
film review
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making of
film profile] by Sarah Gavron will be the opening film of the 33rd Turin Film Festival (20-28 November 2015), after it opens the London Film Festival on 7 October. Set in 1912 and written by Abi Morgan (who also penned The Iron Lady [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
film profile], Shame [+see also:
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trailer
film profile] and Brick Lane [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the first movie directed by Gavron), Suffragette depicts the living and working conditions of women in London in the early 20^th century, focusing on their struggle and the persecution they were forced to endure.

Lying at the heart of the third movie by the young English filmmaker are the trials and tribulations of washerwoman Maud (played by Carey Mulligan), a young mother in London’s East End, chemist Edith, who makes her own homemade bombs (Helena Bonham Carter), and proletarian Violet (Anne-Marie Duff).

Meryl Streep will make a special appearance in the film as Emmeline Pankhurst, the British activist who founded the Women’s Social and Political Union in 1903, thus providing the main impetus behind the idea of “suffrage”, or women’s right to vote in elections, which had until then been reserved solely for men.

“Not many people remember what really happened at that time,” the director explained. “The suffragettes started fires, bombed buildings and were not afraid of anything. I mean, how many people do you know today who would be prepared to start a hunger strike for a certain cause, and then to be force-fed for that same cause?” In 1918, the right to vote was granted to female heads of households who were over 30 years old. Ten years later, every single woman in the United Kingdom had suffrage.

Suffragette has been acquired for Italy by CINEMA and will be distributed by BIM in March 2016.

(Translated from Italian)