A Time and a Place

For the Year of Culture, archive activist feminist collective Invisible Women, have curated a season of coming of age films which draw inspiration from Bradford’s story of youth and diaspora. A Time and a Place is inspired by the many nationalities who have called this city home over the past century – from the German, Hungarian and Ukrainian communities who arrived in the aftermath of war and persecution, to the Irish and Pakistani migrant workers who played such an important role in our industrial heritage.

Although diverse in perspective and style, these films (all directed and written by women) are fundamentally connected by their empathy for the emotional rollercoaster which comes with navigating early adulthood. Both Mädchen in Uniform (1931) and Hush-A-Bye Baby (1989) set school girl romance in opposition to state oppression, albeit within very different contexts—fascist Germany and Troubles-era Northern Ireland. The relationship between mothers and their children is central to both Kira Muratova’s The Long Farewell (1971), set in Soviet-era Ukraine, and Fawzia Mirza’s The Queen of My Dreams (2023), in which a queer Canadian woman reconnects with her Pakistani heritage. Finally, Ildikó Enyedi’s bewitching My Twentieth Century (1989) presents a literally explosive story of political and personal awakening, set in turn of the century Hungary.