Claire Rushbrook and Adam Pearson are among the special guests announced as speakers at The Independent’s Celebrating Free Thinkers event at London’s ICA next week.
In celebration of the paper’s 40th anniversary, a specially curated series of exciting events and film screenings with on-stage Q&As will be held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London next week – tickets for which you can find here, with a special members-only discount available.
Rivals star Rushbrook will give fans a glimpse behind the curtain in a conversation together with The Independent’s chief culture reporter Jacob Stolworthy about her acclaimed romance-drama Ali & Ava, which will take place before a screening of the film on Thursday evening (22 October).
The film, released in 2021 and co-starring Adeel Akhtar, won praise for its tender, uplifting and unconventional love story set in Bradford, West Yorkshire. “One of the most enchanting films of the past decade,” wrote The Independent’s deputy culture editor Ellie Harrison.
Elsewhere in the programme, Pearson, an actor and disability rights activist, will be joining a screening of Oscar winner Jonathan Glazer’s 2013 sci-fi masterpiece Under the Skin, also in conversation with Stolworthy, on Saturday (24 October).
Pearson starred in the Bafta-nominated movie alongside Scarlett Johansson, who played an alien sent to Glasgow to harvest human flesh. It’s a surreal and superb watch, “a testament to bold, daring British movie-making,” wrote The Independent’s assistant culture editor Adam White.
The actor will be there to lift the lid on the movie’s “wild” behind-the-scenes story, which saw Johansson walking the streets of Glasgow and interacting with non-actors while cameras hidden in mop buckets and umbrellas caught the action.
These Q&As form part of the wider programme of screenings and cultural events curated to spark conversation and spotlight creative expression and ideas that challenge convention.
Celebrating Free Thinkers will open with an exclusive event for Independent Members on 19 October, with a Q&A between Editor-in-Chief Geordie Greig and Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding, who was working at The Independent as a journalist in the Nineties when she began writing the anonymous column that would become the basis for the iconic character so memorably portrayed by Renee Zellweger in four film adaptations.
The programme also features the premiere of Greig’s documentary Cancelled: The Rise and Fall of Aung San Suu Kyi, about Myanmar’s former leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Kim Aris, the son of the ousted civilian leader, will be present for Q&A together with Greig.
Greig said: “The Independent has always existed to champion free thought and fearless ideas. As we celebrate our 40th anniversary, this partnership with the ICA gives us an exciting opportunity to bring that spirit to life through film, conversation and culture, creating a space for audiences to engage with original voices and ideas.”
Meanwhile, Bengi Ünsal, Director of ICA London, said: “The ICA Cinema has always championed inventive independent film. As a part of this week-long collaboration with The Independent we are delighted to be able to bring an even greater spotlight to this work, in particular the launch of our major retrospective of the work of Japanese filmmaker Shōhei Imamura, whose unruly and inventive approach to cinema is singular in the medium’s history.”
The full public programme comprises:
- 20 October: Cancelled: The Rise and Fall of Aung San Suu Kyi, with a special Q&A; Wombs of Debt premiere
- 21 October: Arrows of Desire: Peter Wollen, including Friendship’s Death, with a special Q&A
- 22 October: Ali & Ava with Q&A featuring Claire Rushbrook; Stolen Desire, opening the Shōhei Imamura retrospective
- 23 October: Off-circuit premiere of The Night Is Fading Away, with a special Q&A
- 24 October: Under the Skin with an on-stage conversation with Adam Pearson
- 25 October: Orlando, with a special Q&A
‘Celebrating Free Thinkers’ will mark the paper's 40th anniversary celebrations with a series of specially curated events and screenings. Independent Members get 20% off all tickets. For more information, visit https://www.ica.art/films/the-independent
The exclusive Bridget Jones’s Diary preview on 19 October is a separate, members-only event and is not included in this discount offer.
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