OutWest 2026 season at Chiswick Cinema for Pride month

Old Girl in a Tutu – Susan Rennie Disrupts Art History, Cheri Gaulke

A programme of feature films and shorts, old and new

June is Pride month, and Chiswick Cinema is marking it with a season of films: OutWest 2026 – ‘celebrating bold, brilliant, and unapologetically queer cinema on the big screen’.

Chris Parker has put together a programme of feature films to run on Tuesday nights throughout the rest of this month and into July, and asked Nuala O’Sullivan to match them with a short film to run before each. She spoke to The Chiswick Calendar about her choices.

Taking off the invisibility cloak

Nuala O’Sullivan WOFFF headshot by Skye Kilgannon

Nuala is the founder of Women Over 50 Film Festival (WOFFF), which came about because she entered a short film in a festival and found there was nobody in the bar to talk to.

Nuala, from Glasgow, is not behind in coming forward. Having spent her career in the media, she will readily talk to anyone, yet at that festival:

“I didn’t see any older women either on screen or in the bar afterwards. Nobody spoke to me in the bar at this short film festival. Their eyes just went up and over me.

“I began to think that maybe they knew I wasn’t worth talking to because this was my first film and I hadn’t had much experience in film. No, said her friends, it’s because you’re a woman over 50. We’re invisible”.

It is a commonly expressed feeling amongst those of us of a certain age, and yet women over fifty are the biggest section of the cinema audience.

So she started the Women Over Fifty Film Festival.

Once a year in Lewes she chooses 50 films from around 350 that are submitted for the festival (the next one is in September). The rest of the year she shows these short films in libraries and community spaces.

What the films have in common is that they either feature on screen an older woman as the main protagonist – not in a supporting role enabling someone else to go off and have an adventure – it can be fiction or a documentary.

Or they are written / directed / produced by a woman over 50.

My Mama, a Man

“I tried to find something that either matched the feel or the vibe”

For the purposes of the OutWest 2026 they are also part of the LBGTQ+ community.

What has she chosen and how has she matched the shorts with the main features?

“I tried to find something that either matched the feel or the vibe, or the subject of the feature film it is to go with”.

For Pink Narcissus then, on Tuesday 16 June, she has chosen Old Girl in a Tutu because both films are about creating fantasies.

In Old Girl in a Tutu an academic in her 80s has cleverly inserted herself “a modern, 80 year old butch dyke” into a series of Old Master paintings. She becomes Whistler’s mother and puts on a tutu to take part in one of Degas’ famous portraits of ballet dancers.

“She’s asking you to open your eyes a bit and see an older woman’s body as something to be celebrated”.

Will that be of interest to young men who might want to watch Pink Narcissus?

“The LGBTQ+ community particularly now need to pull together. Lesbians have always been supporters of gay men since AIDS and before, and gay men are supportive of lesbians and trans people”.

She has matched the feature film Topping Out with Twinless. Twinless is about two young men who develop an unlikely bromance at a bereavement group. Topping Out is about two scaffolders working at height where their conversation becomes dangerous when secrets are exposed.

“They’re both about male friendship / bromance”.

Catch OutWest 2026 from tonight (16 June) and celebrate the work of older women at the same time as part of Pride month.

Pink Narcissus (1971)

The programme

“This season brings together a striking mix of cult favourites and boundary-pushing works”, says Chris, “from the candy-coloured satire But I’m a Cheerleader to the lush, rarely seen Pink Narcissus in a stunning 4K restoration.

“Alongside these icons, discover exciting contemporary voices with Twinless and Madfabulous, each offering fresh perspectives on identity, desire, and self-expression.

“OutWest is about more than just films it’s a space to come together, celebrate community, and experience stories that deserve to be seen loud and proud. Everyone is welcome”.

Tuesday 16 June: Pink Narcissus (1971)
An outrageous erotic poem focusing on the daydreams of a beautiful boy prostitute who, from the seclusion of his ultra-kitsch apartment, conceives a series of interlinked narcissistic fantasies populated by matadors, dancing boys, slaves, and leather-clad bikers.

Short film: Old Girl in a Tutu
Feminist scholar Susan Rennie seizes her iPhone and sneaks her queer, octogenarian body into great works of art, disrupting the narrative of the male gaze. With humour and wit, Rennie’s photographic interventions offer a feminist critique of the conventional canon of art history.

Book tickets: Pink Narcissus + Old Girl in a Tutu

Madfabulous (2026)

Tuesday 23 June: Madfabulous (2026)
When the flamboyant Henry Paget arrives in 1890s North Wales to claim his aristocratic inheritance, his theatrical flair and defiant eccentricities send shockwaves through the upper-class elite, much to the amusement of the local townspeople.

Alongside his spirited cousin, Lily, and loyal butler, Gelert, Henry tries to carve out his own identity as the Fifth Marquess, navigating suffocating traditions, scheming relatives, and the long shadow cast by his estranged father.

Short film: My Mama, a Man
This is a story about a mum, a mum who wrote a list of 60 things she wanted to do before turning 60. Number one on her list was to be a man for a day.

Book tickets: Madfabulous + My Mama, a Man

Twinless (2025)

Tuesday 30 June: Twinless (2025)
After meeting in a twin bereavement support group, Roman (Dylan O’Brien) and Dennis (James Sweeney) develop an unlikely bromance as they both search for solace and an identity without their better halves.

They soon become inseparable, but old wounds reopen that will have permanent consequences for their friendship. Lauren Graham and Aisling Franciosi also star in this stirring, whip-smart, wholly original dark-comedy from breakout multi hyphenate director James Sweeney.

Short film: Topping Out
As two scaffolders scale a London high-rise, their banter and wordplay rapidly descend into distrust. Desires and secrets are exposed – will they turn deadly at this height?

Book tickets: Twinless + Topping Out

But I’m a Cheerleader (1999)

Tuesday 7 July: But I’m a Cheerleader (1999)
A naive teenager is sent to rehab camp when her straitlaced parents and friends suspect her of being a lesbian.

Short film: The Second Time Around
It’s raining outside and Elle’s closing the café for the evening. A woman knocks on the door. She’s drenched, can she come in just for a minute? Elle takes pity on the stranger and invites her in. The past and the present collide.

Book tickets: But I’m a Cheerleader + The Second Time Around