Arts ahead

Celebrating Arab Women Filmmakers

April 3-10, BFI Southbank, Barbican, ICA, Hackney Picturehouse

This festival celebrating women filmmakers from the Arab world aims to showcase the diverse range of cinematic voices which are drawing increasing attention on the international film festival circuit. Included in the programe are When I Saw You from Palestine's first female feature director Annemarie Jacir which follows a free-spirited young boy escaping from a refugee camp, Coming Forth By Day, the story of an unmarried woman dutifully caring for her sick father as she tries to escape to a life of her own, and On The Edge, which depicts two young women as they plunge into the underside of Moroccan life. Documentaries from Egypt and Syria also feature.

www.birds-eye-view.co.uk

Dublin Legends

March 17, The Lowry Salford Quays

This Saint Patrick's night hooley features classic Dubliners songs such as Whiskey in The Jar, Dirty Old Town, Black Velvet Band, Seven Drunken Nights, Finnegan's Wake, Molly Malone and many more. The Legends are some of the original members of the Dubliners who are carrying on that seminal band's legacy by touring with some of their most well-known numbers.

www.thelowry.com

Cannibals

April 3-27 April, Royal Exchange Theatre St Ann's Square

Rory Mullarkey's new play Cannibals - the first by the Manchester playwright - lacks nothing if not ambition. Tackling big themes of love, death and consumerism in the 21st century, its central character Lizaveta (Ony Uhiara, pictured) undertakes a nightmare journey from a war-torn ex-Soviet state to the streets of Manchester. Her quest to start again leads her through mud and blood, past holy fools and icon painters, to things she has never imagined. It's a work typical of this theatre's commitment to nurturing new writing and for that reason alone deserves support.

www.royalexchange.co.uk

Labour And Activism

March 10-March 26, Showroom Workstation Paternoster Row

This season of films, presented in association with the University of Sheffield's Centre for Peace History, examines how industrial action has been explored in cinema. Included in the programme are Made In Dagenham (pictured), The Battle For Orgreave and the recently released The Happy Lands, much praised by this paper's reviewer.

www.showroomworkstation.org.uk