Melanie Manchot’s film and installation bring together a small cast of professional actors with 20 participants from a Liverpool addiction recovery centre, including the lead actor Stephen Giddings. The art gallery presentations include an installation of multiple CRT televisions introducing the characters, and the people who play them, through a series of monologues and auditions, before entering the cinematic screening of STEPHEN, with a 78-minute running time.

Visually striking, STEPHEN is also about the process of filmmaking, about stories and staged realities, about the thin line between fact and fiction. It explores with unflinching honesty the complexities of desire, ambitions, hopes and dreams as well as the power of creativity as a motor for change. Across the arc of the film, we follow the true progress, the successes and failures as our main character takes on a fictional role – his big chance to show his skills as a charismatic actor. Following Ste's journey offers viewers a cathartic experience as his story speaks to all of us, to our all-too-human desire to make the best out of our lives – whatever that may be.

Families should be aware that the film has a cinema 15 rating.

SCREENINGS AT 10:30 / 12:00 / 13:30 / 15:00 though you may enter the film at any point, if you wish.