Acclaimed director visits Plymouth Arts Centre for screening of her new film ‘Pin Cushion’

Plymouth Arts Centre will be welcoming acclaimed director Deborah Haywood to their cinema on Thursday 19 July for an exciting opportunity to hear the filmmaker introduce her new film, Pin Cushion.

Having opened the sought-after Critics’ Week programme at Venice Film Festival, BIFA-nominated Haywood’s Pin Cushion has already been praised for its wicked and thought-provoking themes.

Following the screening of the film, Deborah will be joined by Oscar and BAFTA winning filmmaker Mia Bays and Jo Duncombe from Reclaim The Frame, and Dr Michaela Gummerum, Associate Professor in Psychology at the University of Plymouth, for a Q&A about the film and its themes.Reclaim the Frame is a pilot programme launched by Birds Eye View and supported by BFI Audience Fund, designed to grow audiences for films created by women.

The team from Make @ 140, a local sewing and creative space cafe, will lead a crafty workshop before the film screening, making miniature pin cushions to commemorate the event.

Pin Cushion tells the story of a unique mother-daughter duo: two glittering misfits who are knitted together in a relationship that is as kitsch and comforting as it is suffocating.

Together, Iona, played with startling screen presence from newcomer Lily Newmark, and her eccentric single mum Lyn, Joanna Scanlan on top form, move to a new town in the Midlands. Iona is determined to reinvent herself at school and quickly jumps through hoops to befriend the popular girls. Meanwhile, Lyn, used to being her daughter’s best friend, feels left out and attempts to woo their neighbour Belinda. As the fragile veneer of forced friendship slips, both Lyn and Iona find themselves seeking fantastical and fabricated alternative realities.

Director and writer of the film Deborah said, “We’ve had grown women and men coming to us at the end of the film, crying. People who have been bullied thank us for making the film.

“As a filmmaker, it was important for me to be authentic and invest myself in this story, which meant opening myself up. I was going through the most horrendous time in my personal life, and that somehow made me feel strong. And bold. And made me just go for it. I felt I wanted to shout out to the universe and see if it replied.’”

Tickets are available to book on the Plymouth Arts Centre website,https://plymouthartscentre.org/whats-on/reclaim-the-frame-pin-cushion/. There are limited seats available so early booking is recommended. The workshop is free and open to all audience members.