Sheffield’s Showroom cinema hosted their second annual Culture Shock film festival this weekend, showing films from a range of genres.
Festival organiser Robert Nevitt said, ‘As a film programmer it gives me a chance to indulge myself and show films that we wouldn’t necessarily normally show. It’s a good opportunity to show films that are almost unclassifiable and bring something to the Sheffield audience that they wouldn’t see anywhere else.’
He also organises the cinema’s horror film festival, Celluloid Screams, which has been running for 18 years.
‘Through programming and selecting films for the horror festival, we were often seeing amazing films that just didn’t quite fit. Culture Shock came about as a way to showcase the broader side of genre cinema,’ said Robert.
The festival screened films from all over the world, including Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Italy and the USA. As well as a schedule of curated films, the festival held a mystery screening, short films and trailers as well as a retro cartoons and cereal party in the Showroom bar to bring nostalgia to the event.
The Showroom cinema opened in 1995 and is one of the UK’s leading independent cinemas. It hosts a variety of film festivals, including DocFest and Sheffield Adventure Film Festival.
‘I’ve always believed that there’s a really appreciative audience for this kind of thing in Sheffield. I started Celluloid Screams in 2009 because I thought there was a strong cultural need for these events. Horror festivals and genre festivals are a huge thing all around the world, and Sheffield is a great home for that,’ said Robert.
The festival showed films never seen before in the UK, such as Kazakh sci-fi flick Stinker (2025), Estonian fantasy epic Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel (1979) and American psychological thriller I Live Here Now (2025).
Many films shown were newly restored or recently released, and came from niche genres or independent production companies.
Showroom’s next film festival is the 18th annual Celluloid Screams horror festival which will be held from the 22-25 October. It was named one of the 40 best genre film festivals in the world by Dread Central in 2025.