Now Circa (1918) is a film essay that quotes original archival research undertaken at John Rylands Suffrage Collection, Manchester and The Women’s Library, LSE. It embodies historical detail and texture relating to the material culture of the suffragettes: such as the handwritten inventory of costs for a march.
The film marks the one hundred year anniversary of female suffrage in the UK. The judges remarked that this was ‘an interesting, excellent and imaginative use of the medium of film to explore issues of feminism and explain the history of women’s suffrage.’
Two women and their counterparts one hundred years earlier are making banners on the eve of a march for women - the first for votes for women and the second for women's rights. Through their conversations and the presence of a mysterious poetic visitor, the film reflects on the parallels and differences between the concerns of women in the era of the suffragettes and women in the contemporary era of Trump and #MeToo.