Double Take a new festival from Showroom’s BFI Young Programmers

From 30 talented Young Programmers comes five days of unforgettable films. We can’t wait for the Double Take Festival at Showroom Cinema.

Each year, Showroom trains over 160 young people through courses from the BFI and Young Programmers. This year’s cohort, from the BFI Film Academy Specialist Residential: Programming, are ready to graduate by hosting a brilliant festival we hope you’ll enjoy.

Double Take starts on Friday 14 August with Missed Connections, bringing two brilliant, recent romances that tug the heartstrings. My Favourite Cake and Past Lives concern an older woman and a younger one, a widowed Iranian and a recently married Korean-American. Both explore relationships and opportunities we may have missed, and what new experiences love can bring.

On Saturday 15, we Dare to be Fabulous, with two road trips about radical self-acceptance. Priscilla Queen of the Desert is the iconic, Australian drag adventure, while Hedwig and the Angry Inch remains a cult favourite rock opera, and a strong reminder of the power of being yourself.

Centre Stage at Any Age arrives on Sunday 16, a look at the pressures faced by aging women in the public eye with two delightfully fun and spiky films. Bette Davis is standout in All About Eve, as the stage idol whose life is cuckooed by a younger actress, while Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn battle for a man even beyond the grave in Death Becomes Her. Onto Monday 17 and Be Your Own Man, with two of the very best masculine dramas Moonlight and Beau Travail. One, a queer coming-of-age in the Miami projects, the other, intense military training in the Djibouti deserts, both interrogate the societal and social expectations of manhood, and characters struggling to walk their own path.

We wrap with Down the Rabbit Hole on Tue 18 Aug. Taking reference from Alice’s adventures, both films embark on surrealist fantasies that blur the line between truth and fiction; Jaques Demy’s cult classic Donkey Skin and Tarsem Singh’s masterpiece The Fall. Find all the details at https://showroomcinema.org.uk/festivals/double-take-festival-2026. Each day will include plenty of wraparound activities, from drag bingo with the dazzling Ditzy o' Darlin on Saturday 15, to quizzes, introductions and selected short films.

Double bill tickets are just £12 for Showroom members, or £18 for adults. Each ticket supports Showroom’s charitable aims to deliver film education and accessible, independent cinema to Sheffield audiences.

By Nathan Makalena, Creative Coordinator at Showroom Cinema