We Are Parable, a distribution company dedicated to highlighting Black cinema, hosted a special screening of Set It Off at independent arts venue HOME theatre last week.

Set It Off, starring Queen Latifah and Jada Pinkett Smith, follows four Black women who plan and execute bank robberies to better their lives. 

The screening was followed by a networking event, featuring stalls by women of colour in Manchester. The stalls offered baked goods from Milly B’s Kitchen, digital art by Amber Carter, jewellery design by Madook, photography by No! Wahala and tarot card readings by Erica Pham.

Khara Linton-Salmon, Cultural Curator for We Are Parable, spoke about why they wanted to pair a screening of Set It Off with a networking event: “The ingenuity of these ladies, I just wanted to promote that with this kind of thing, this is what black women and women of colour can do.”

The advancement of streaming in the past decade means that many classics can be seen from the comfort of one’s home for a single, increasingly more expensive, fee a month. 

In more recent years, we’ve seen films go straight to streaming a limited or no cinema release at all. Khara underlines why Set It Off is different and why seeing old and new films in cinema will always be a valuable experience. 

“The collective community feel of watching something like this is important and we need to go back to that, especially Black cinema, because they’re not putting stuff like Set It Off on streaming services,” Khara noted. 

“It’s important to come to these events to meet with other people of colour, other Black people that feel the love, understand film and want to create a community together.

“Community is getting lost; I think cinema is one of those things that would help uplift it.” Khara concluded.

Rawdat, an actor and attendee at the screening and event, agreed with the importance of community. “Being in a room with people that are willing to share, back and understand your experience and being able form [a] connection over that but also bring different experiences into the room under one familiarity, I think is why community is important.”

The screening also marks the first of two screenings We Are Parable is hosting for Women’s History Month. Set It Off will be followed by The Watermelon Woman, also at HOME on the 30th of March.

For more about We Are Parable’s work in Black cinema, check out their website and follow them on Instagram. Watch below to hear more about Khara’s thoughts about the film and community in relation to her work with We Are Parable.