Dai Bradley, aka Billy Casper from Ken Loach’s 1969 classic Kes, has joined the line up for Sheffield indie cinema Showroom’s first Working Class Film Festival.
The new festival at Sheffield’s home for independent cinema aims to address class imbalance in the UK film industries, while showcasing some of the finest examples of working class cinema from the UK and beyond.
The Working Class Film Festival runs at Showroom Cinema from Friday 8th – Sunday 10th May, screening over 35 films from working class filmmakers.
More than half the programme features films from working class communities in the UK, with works from international directors in countries including Canada, Ukraine, Greece and Palestine also featuring.
Genres go far beyond the kitchen sink, with fantastical imagined futures of life, death and work, groundbreaking documentaries and experimental shorts.
From a documentary account of Bengali Workers’ 1978 resistance to fascist National Front marches (If Not Now); to a fashion catwalk on the pebbledash estates of South Wales (Ffasiwn, The Film); to a darkly comic grand-theft-hearse, by two siblings wishing their nan a final farewell (Gan Canny), the programme highlights the breadth of stories being produced today.
The three-day celebration is bookended by two of the UK’s most boundary-breaking films.
Opener, Horace Ové’s Pressure, is hailed as Britain’s first black feature film. A document of urban alienation in London’s West Indian community, it uses non-actors and realist direction to force characters and audiences alike to meet systemic racism head-on. It screens at 17.30 on Friday 8 May.
The festival closes with Kes plus an onstage Q&A with lead actor David (Dai) Bradley. Ken Loach’s 1969 adaptation of Barry Hines’s novel A Kestrel for a Knave remains a defining symbol of Northern, working class storytelling and screens at 15.30 on Sunday 10 May.
There’s also an opportunity for young people to take a crash course in end-to-end film production, in a talk led by filmmaker Yorgo Glynatsis. The BAFTA and BIFA-qualified director is a member of Directors UK and a voting member of the Belgian Film Academy.
Elle Short, festival director said: “We’ve all got an image in our heads of what ‘working class film’ looks like, and for most of us, it’s stuck firmly in the past. This festival is a crossroads for those working in the industry, those aspiring to do so, and those that exhibit and watch working class cinema, to find and celebrate excellence that is extremely present.”
Johnathan Ilott, head of programming at Showroom Cinema added: “With access to opportunities tighter than ever for those entering the film industries, we’re proud to support the festival in celebrating and spotlighting the artists that preserve and remain resilient. We are at the heart of the region that led the British Realism movement, and this wonderfully diverse lineup starts a whole new conversation about the contemporary working class experience”
Find full details for all films and events screening as part of Working Class Film Festival 2026 here.
