A charity screening of Audrey Diwan’s Happening will be taking place at the Light House Cinema on Sunday 22nd May in support of reproductive rights.
The Smithfield cinema will be sending all proceeds on to the Abortion Rights Campaign. The Abortion Rights Campaign (ARC) is a grassroots all-volunteer group dedicated to achieving free, safe and legal abortion care everywhere on the island of Ireland, for everyone who wants or needs it. ARC was one of the three core groups that formed the civil society organisation Together for Yes, which successfully campaigned for a Yes vote in the referendum to repeal the 8th amendment from the Irish constitution in May 2018.
ARC continues to work at a grassroots level to promote stigma-busting around abortion, community and public education, pro-choice visibility in the media and policy work geared towards ensuring abortion legislation provides free, safe and legal care for all.
Happening shows the realities of those who are unable to make a free choice about their own reproductive health. The Light House, as with us at Film In Dublin, stand in solidarity with those fighting for access to abortion care, wherever they might be. France, 1963, Anne (Anamaria Vartolomei) is a bright young student with a promising future ahead of her. But when she falls pregnant, she sees the opportunity to finish her studies and escape the constraints of her social background disappearing. With her final exams fast approaching and her pregnancy progressing, Anne resolves to act, even if she has to confront shame and pain, even if she must risk prison to do so.
Reviewing the film at this year’s Dublin International Film Festival, Jess Dunne was struck by its harrowing and humanising qualities:
On the whole, Happening presents us with an equally harrowing and humanising portrayal of what happens when abortion is criminalised. The position it puts pregnant people in when they don’t want or can’t continue their pregnancy.
Tickets for this screening are available now from the Light House. The film is set to screen at 3pm on the Sunday. Headlines at home and abroad have underlined the importance in protecting and advancing free, safe and legal abortion rights for all.