Northwest Film Event Highlights – September 2013

Breaking Bad may have tense telly addicts glued to their screens this month but there are still plenty of reasons to go cold turkey and venture outside. Maybe something a little naughty? Certificate X Cult Film Screenings can certainly provide that. This Mancunian operation have three events scheduled throughout September, each celebrating forgotten formats and frisky films. The UK premiere of Frank Henenlotter’s documentary That’s Sexploitation! kicks things off on 2 Sep at Manchester’s Three Minute Theatre, or 3MT, offering a risqué ride through the history of American sexploitation with the ‘Mighty Monarch of Exploitation’ David F. Friedman as your guide. More docs follow on 12 Sep with Rewind This and Adjust Your Tracking, a double-bill celebrating the resurgence and importance of VHS. Meanwhile on 24 Sep at 2022NQ, you could find yourself playing the third part in a ménage á trois with racy classics Café Flesh and Pussy Talk – talk about guilty pleasures. Part of Scalarama.

Cornerhouse in Manchester celebrates all things noir on 14 Sep with its 24-hour noir-athon. This mainly monochrome event marks the beginning of the art centre’s My Noir season and features consecutive screenings of eleven genre classics, including The Killers, Stray Dog, Bound, Brick, Wild Things, Night Moves, Insomnia, Gilda, Out of the Past and The Big Sleep. What’s more, the cinema and gallery will also be hosting an art installation inspired by and named after Billy Wilder’s landmark noir Double Indemnity. Grab your fedora, light up a cigarette and get involved.

Liverpool’s FACT makes you an offer you can’t refuse on 1 Sep with a digitally remastered screening of Francis Ford Coppola’s mafioso masterpiece The Godfather, while on 19 Sep the very same venue will host a special sneak peek of Hawking. Directed by Stephen Finnigan, this insightful biopic invites Professor Stephen Hawking to talk you through his astonishing life, from PhD greatness to his motor neuron disease diagnosis and worldwide fame. Viewers will then be treated to a post-screening Q&A with Hawking himself and some special guests, live from the opening night of the Cambridge Film Festival. Clearly the smart choice for cinema fans.

And finally, you’ll find a new quotable classic each Monday in Manchester as the Printworks’ Flashback Film Series attempts to keep you warm as the days grow colder. Expect The Departed on 2 Sep, followed by Withnail & I, This Is England, The Goonies and ending with Goodfellas on 30 Sep. With all this to enjoy, who needs Walter White?