Join Me On The Bridge London

Organised by Women for Women International, this uplifting event sees women gather on the Southbank at 10.30am for face painting and banner-making, before marching over several bridges to the Royal Festival Hall, where there will be speeches by a series of special guests. Join Me On The Bridge London is one of many identical events around the world, which raise awareness of the need for peace and equality.

Women of the World Festival at the Southbank Centre (6-10 Mar)

More than 300 speakers from around the world will take part in the Southbank Centre’s Women of the World Festival, which boasts an impressive programme of talks, workshops, music and performances. On International Women’s Day itself, the festival offers an array of talks by inspiring women such as Sarah Brown, Julia Hobsbawm and Julie Walters, as well as debates, music and the chance to gain valuable advice in a speed mentoring session. Day tickets are £12.

Lectures in London

Whether you want to discover the health benefits of being a working mother, attend a free conference on women entrepreneurs, or  find out why women are more affected by natural disasters, there are plenty of fascinating – and often free – events taking place on 8 March. Women in science is a particular theme this year: check out Women and Science, Suffrage Science or the Stemettes 2013 Panel (7 Mar) to discover the amazing work being done by women scientists across the globe.

World of Women Film Festival (23 and 28 Mar)

Based in Australia, the World of Women (WOW) Festival has been screening the best in contemporary female short film for the past 18 years. For 2013 the UK-based Equator, which celebrates women’s creativity in all its forms, is collaborating with the WOW Festival to bring a selection of its films to London on 24 and 28 March. Films range from Kamambo, a drama about a West Papuan asylum seeker in Australia, to Distant Thunder, a comedy about marriage and death.

Social opportunities

International Women’s Day is a great incentive to meet and be inspired by other women professionals, and the women-only networking lunch at the City Business Library is a perfect opportunity to do just that. Women Rotarians can also enjoy spectacular views whilst they socialise at City Hall, where Rotary in London is staging a networking breakfast.

International Women’s Day Entertainment

There are many celebrations of women’s creativity taking place on and around International Women’s Day. You can listen to works by contemporary female composers at St Andrew’s Holborn, see a Philippine fashion show, or tickle your funny bone for charity at a comedy gala hosted by some of the world’s top women comedians (7 Mar). BFI Southbank is also hosting a special pre-release screening of Wadjda, an award-winning film by Saudia Arabia’s first female feature director.

Million Women Rise March (9 Mar)

Gathering outside Selfridges at 12pm on Saturday, the Million Women Rise March will pedestrianise Oxford Street so that thousands of women can march to Trafalgar Square for a rally at 3pm. The march protests against male violence towards women, and is the largest of its kind in Europe.

Artist Sarah Bridgland sent us this report from The Apple Cart Festival.

A couple of Sundays ago, I led a workshop at The Apple Cart, a new festival in leafy Victoria Park.

Blending music and comedy with interactive art, cabaret and magic, The Apple Cart had the feel of a family-friendly village fete.

The workshop was part of The Candlelit Matinee, an interactive arts event ran by community arts charity The House of Fairytales. Festival goers were invited to take part in a range of art projects, workshops and performances, all presented under the canvas of an atmospheric grand circus-style marquee.

There was much creative fun to be had, for kids and adults alike. Highlights included shadow puppetry with The Little Theatre of Dolls, printing and drawing with kids’ arts and science magazine Okido and my very own workshop, make a matchbox sculpture. You could even star in a silent movie with BFI Education.

The event proved to be hugely popular for young people of all ages and their families.

You can keep an eye out for more fun and innovative House of Fairytale events here.

Do you have any memories you’d like to share from a London festival this summer? Let us know in the comments below, or add your photos to the Visit London flickrpool

We’re all thrilled about the outcome of the Ashes here in the VL office. But sometimes the action in Australia has felt like it’s a very long way away.

Here’s some brilliant coverage of England winning the Ashes at home in 1926 from the BFI archive.

It shows England beating Australia as they regained the Ashes for the first time since 1912 after drawing four successive tests and winning the fifth by 289 runs. This Topical Budget newsreel, originally released on 19 August 1926, shows selected highlights of that fifth test at the Oval. And it certainly looks very different to today’s coverage. No technology here to give people out; these guys aren’t even wearing helmets!

If you’re a cricket fan in London, make sure you take the Lord’s Tour, including the MCC museum. It’s a must-see!

Calling all London cinema buffs! Win a year’s worth of movies at ICA, as well as a family ticket to BFI IMAX and a BFI DVD package.

You’ll get two tickets per month throughout 2011 to use at ICA, which has a unique programme of world cinema, artists’ films, independent documentaries and international film festivals.  Plus there’s all the excitment of BFI IMAX, the UK’s biggest cinema screen! And finally, a load of DVDs to enjoy at home.

To win this fantastic film prize, all you have to do is enter your details here

With London caught up in fillm-fever this week, we wanted to share this great video from the opening night of the BFI London Film Festival.

Watch stars Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield light up London’s Leicester Square as they chat about their new film, Never Let Me Go.

Have you seen anything exciting as part of the BFI London Film Festival? Keep us posted in the comments…

By day an economist and by night a freelance scribe, Serbian expat Mal Božić takes a day off to play flâneur in London as part of our World in London series.

On my first day as a Londoner, above the entrance to the Knightsbridge serviced apartment building where I was staying, I saw this plaque (below). It turns out I wasn’t the first Serbian resident there. Encouraged by those Serbs who came before me, I set out to discover my own virtual little Belgrade within the cultural maze of London.

Here’s a typical trek through it.

Most Serbs start the day with a good, strong coffee. It may as well be from Monmouth in Covent Garden (filteruša for the Mitteleuropa northerners, a latte for the Italianate Belgraders, and for my southern compatriots: the nearest Turkish restaurant for your strong black stuff).

Properly fuelled, it’s a short Boris-bike spin to Daunt Books for some paper media. Its exceptional Balkans section includes the stunning memoir of a Serbian Londoner, by Vesna Goldsworthy. Read it, weep, laugh, then call your mother to tell her you love her.

Heading further west, it’s time to be confronted by one of Serbia’s eminent enfant terrible. Marina Abramović is back in town for Frieze and she will be treating us to a retrospective at the Lisson Gallery. For all who couldn’t make it to her run at New York’s MoMa this year, here’s your chance to catch up with the godmother of performance art.

By now hungry, I might head up to Maida Vale’s Babylon Supermarket for its industrial quantities of Plazma, a delicious, evil calorie-bomb biscuit to which Serbs get addicted during toddlerhood.

For something daintier, it has to be afternoon tea at Claridge’s. This legendary hotel is the birthplace of Alexander II, the current Serbian Crown Prince, born at a time when continental elites were camped out in London waiting for the Second World War to end. To ensure Alexander’s claim to the throne, Churchill’s government temporarily placed suite 212 under Yugoslav sovereignty.

With the sun setting, it’s over to the Southbank for a glass of an oaky red at the BFI, before catching a Serbian film. The recent month-long Goran Paskaljević retrospective was a treat. Really, a fitting bookend to a rewarding day in London.

Do you have any more tips for enjoying Serbian culture in London? Let us know in the comments below.

Witty wartime film Went the Day Well? based on a Graham Greene story returns to the big screen this week and I was lucky enough to see a sneak preview.

The fast-paced thriller, produced by Ealing Studios in 1942 as unofficial propaganda, depicts public concerns during the Second World War in the cheery little village of Bramley End.

Led by the respectable Major Hammond (Basil Sydney), a troop of British soldiers turn up unexpectedly in the quaint village. They are soon immersed within the community, thanks to the help of village gentry Oliver Wilsford (Leslie Banks).

But all is not what it seems, and suspicions are raised over the handwriting of one of the soldiers and a piece of chocolate found in a rucksack – cue village camaraderie, plots and shock tactics.

Banks plays the wily Wilsford with aplomb, while Sydney’s portrayal of Hammond is reminiscent of Sid Lowe’s Captain Mainwaring (Dad’s Army) at his most beguiling.

While hilarious one-liners are thrown in, the story also has surprising sinister and violent moments.

It’s a must-see – if just for the 1940s time acting and filmmaking.

Restored by the British Film Institute the film is re-released on 9 July 2010 at BFI Southbank.

Right now, many of us are caught firmly in the grip of footie fever. But we do feel for those of you who don’t want to watch the World Cup in London.

With this in mind, our good friends at BFI Southbank are hosting an Alternative To The World Cup film season.

What better way to escape the World Cup madness than by settling down in a darkened cinema to watch one of the classics such as:

• All of Grace Kelly’s films including Hitchcock’s Rear Window
• A Fistful of Dollars starring Clint Eastwood
• Kubrick classic A Clockwork Orange
• Eco thriller Soylent Green with Charlton Heston
• Tilda Swinton’s latest I Am Love
• Manga movie Ghost In the Shell 2: Innocence

Lucky for you, BFI is offering 10 pairs of tickets to any film during their June and July seasons to celebrate their alternative to the world cup campaign. And we want to know, what’s your World Cup alternative?

Leave a comment below and email filmcompetitions@bfi.org.uk with Visit London World Cup in the subject by Friday 25 June to win.

Read competition terms and conditions

Take a trip back in time in London, to when colour film was pretty exciting!

As Sonia Genaitay explains:

This film is tricky to describe: is it a boat study, a film-poem, an experiment, a picture postcard? One thing is certain: it’s a rare colour snapshot of the Thames and London in the 1930s – and it looks quite magical.

Colour film was still a novelty for audiences in 1935, and the photography (using the new Gasparcolor system) succeeds in accentuating the sharp contrast between the vivid green banks of the countryside and the drab tones of the industrial landscape.

Look out for the fantastic old images of Tower Bridge and Docklands: beyond that, we hardly recognised any other landmarks, particularly as it goes further down river and “out to sea”. Could you spot any more familiar areas of the Thames?

Visit London is getting really excited about London Film Day this Sunday.

The event promises to be one of the world’s “biggest” film premieres, with Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang being shown for the first time, simultaneously, in 15 London cinemas.

Emma Thompson is Nanny McPhee, the warty but lovable childcare worker who manages to be firm but fair. In her latest caper, Nanny McPhee helps mum Maggie Gyllenhaal to tame her rag-tag kids. The film also features Rhys Ifans, Maggie Smith and Ralph Fiennes.

Be part of this exciting event by getting tickets for your local cinema. There’s a full list of participating cinemas at www.bfi.org.uk/londonfilmday.

Best of all, tickets are only £5 for adults and £1 for kids, with free workshops and other activities planned at most cinemas on the day.