“The great achievement of the film is that it’s not about women of a certain class, it’s about a working girl and I think it’s why we can enter so easily into the film, she looks like us”, added Streep. While Meryl jokes she wouldn’t have minded more scenes, she acknowledges the importance of making a relatable movie.
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After around half an hour, the protestors were removed from the red carpet and escorted out of the premiere.
Inside Holloway Prison leader of the British Suffragette movement Emmeline Pankhurst, played by eight-time Golden Globe victor Meryl Streep, staged her first hunger strike to improve conditions for other suffragettes in nearby cells.
It was held by Sisters Uncut, who said “the struggle is not over”, pointing to the number of women who die at the hands of domestic violence. The poignant nature of the film and the passion for women’s rights of everyone involved came alive as they took to the mics to continue the cause.
Suffragette star Helena Bonham Carter was shocked by the protesters yet remained calm as she continued signing fan autographs and posing for the cameras.
The mostly female picketers, wearing shirts that read, “dead women can’t vote”, ended the demonstration after about 10 minutes. “For these women to do that tonight, I think that’s awesome”. “If men don’t look around the the board of governors table and feel something is wrong when half the people there are not women then we’re not going to make any progress”, she told BBC.
Suffragette opened the London Film Festival which runs from 7 to 18 October.
About a dozen activists from the Sisters Uncut group jumped the barriers to lay down, mostly on their backs, on the red carpet. She explained: “We are all the same”. “It isn’t fair. We need inclusion”, she said.
In the movie Suffragette, Streep, 66, plays Emmeline Pankhurst, one of the real-life founders of the Women’s Social and Political Union, which has launched a campaign of civil disobedience.
After declaring herself a “humanist” and not a feminist in an interview last week, the actress was asked to expand on her stance at the “Suffragette” press conference in London Wednesday.
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Meryl Streep and Carey Mulligan kept having laughing fits on the set of Suffragette.
