Announcing a new UK-wide film season: Too Much: Melodrama on Film
Published September 29, 2025
Follow your emotions and get swept away by the big screen experience as Exeter Phoenix proudly delivers the new UK-wide season: Too Much: Melodrama on Film.
Too Much celebrates films which champions emotional intensity over ‘good taste’. Exeter Phoenix presents films that are united by motherhood; Maternal Melodramas, which portray mothers as emotionally complex individuals, as victims, punished regardless of whether they sacrifice too much or too little. These films are designed to make you break down in tears, cause a scene, fall in love, feel something.
In collaboration with a range of partners including Dolly’s Film Club, Italian Cultural Association and Daylight Collective, Exeter Phoenix will examine five films from the 1940s to the 2000s to reveal how cinema has both celebrated and slated mothers, while shaping our understanding of maternal identity within Melodrama.
Exeter Phoenix will also be hosting the, a cinematic audio installation that invites participants to leave a message for a lost, imagined, or impossible love.
Titles
- Brief Encounter | 1945 | Wed 08 & Sun 12 Oct + Daylight Collective Parent and Carer Screening on Wed 03 Dec
- Volver | 2006 | Sat 11 Oct
- All that Heaven Allows | 1955 | Sun 26 Oct
- Dolly’s Film Club presents: Steel Magnolias | 1989 | Sun 02 Nov
- Italian Cultural Association presents: Mamma Roma | 1962 | Sun 09 Nov
Installation
Lost Love Hotline. The Heartbreak Archive
Exeter Phoenix | Wed 08 - Fri 17 Oct
Do you think about a love that's not yours anymore? Or one you imagined, hurting your own feelings? Or the one you never had the courage to reach out for? Perhaps it keeps you up at night and merges into your daydreams? Do you want to tell it to a stranger and release it? You can with Lost Love Hotline, we will hold them and keep them safe in our archive among other Lonelyhearts.
Love Lost Hotline is a cinematic audio installation that invites participants to leave a message for a lost, imagined, or impossible love. Entering a dreamlike phone booth - they record their confession, becoming part of a growing archive of heartbreak and yearning. Messages range from raw truths to speculative fictions and aspirational musings.
Leave a message for your heartbreak, lost, forgotten, or imagined.
Follow the Lost Love Hotline on Instagram.
Brought to you by Light After Dark with the support of Broadway Cinema and Near Now, in collaboration with Waste Studio.
Programme Notes
Maternal Melodramas - films that portray motherhood as emotionally complex and morally nuanced. Exeter Phoenix will examine six films from the 1940s to the 2000s to reveal how cinema has both celebrated and slated mothers, while shaping our understanding of, and relationship to, maternal identity on film.
Films will be presented alongside insightful introductions, playful activity and national moments, which will engage audiences and help offer context across the season.
Our titles will be delivered alongside our season partners who will assist in exploring how melodramas humanise maternal flaws, framing them as everyday struggles rather than evil acts.
Season partners will include Dolly’s Film Club, University of Exeter, Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, Italian Cultural Association Exeter, Daylight Collective and Light After Dark Film Festival.
Dolly’s Film Club (Beyond Boundaries Alumni) has a proven mother-daughter following and will deliver a special screening of Steel Magnolias, a film big on emotion, which will respond to the multi-generational appeal and its ability to bring diverse audiences together “Crying at a movie with several hundred strangers … is something else entirely - it was a cathartic,” (Letterbox reviewer on watching Steel Magnolias in the cinema). This partnership will broaden audience reach and encourage “Laughter through tears” a favourite emotion of character Truvy, played by Dolly Parton.
Brief Encounter, one of the first films to play in Studio 74 at Exeter Phoenix, will be presented as part of the cinema’s 10th Birthday celebrations. You can revisit our 2015 article about the film on our blog. Our partnership with Daylight Collective will expand on this film by offering a follow-up interactive, day-time screening aimed at parents and carers. Participants will be offered the opportunity to delve into Creative Journaling, which will explore Matrescence and M/Otherhood alongside themes of the season.
Brief Encounter | 1945
Our long term partners, Italian Cultural Association Exeter will present a Mamma Roma with a special introduction. Curation and discovery will feature in the season, allowing audiences to interact in light touch and playful ways.
Bill Douglas Cinema Museum will make their Curation Intern, Simran Kaur Sanghera, available to Exeter Phoenix and together we will invite them to respond to newly unlocked content from the museum archive and build a temporary exhibition drawing on the themes of the season.
Exeter Phoenix will host Light After Dark’s touring phone booth, an installation which uses Douglas Sirk films as a jumping-off point for aesthetics and sentiment. Audiences will be able to generate content and interact with the archive of previous records which will be made available on Instagram. Furthermore the installation will amplify the work of Sirk and provide an additional talking point for our screening of All That Heaven Allows and enable audiences to interact across the nation.
All That Heaven Allows | 1955
Partners and Collaborators
Dolly's Film Club
Dolly’s Film Club is a regular film event that screens cult films, forgotten classics and most of all films that celebrate the JOY of being an audience! Interactive elements, prizes and fancy dress is always a part of DFC screenings.
Dolly is also a cat.
Find out more on their website or follow them on Instagram.
Daylight Collective
Lead by Producer and Mother Lizzy Humber the Daylight Collective is a supportive network for creative parents & carers in the South West. Adult centred, children welcome at everything!
Find out more on their website or follow them on Instagram.
M/Others On The Mic
A relaxed and revolutionary performance space with the m/other of all line-ups.
Join local m/others and guest m/other artists for a daytime open mic with songs, poetry, comedy and stories. These are a relaxed and lively spaces for grown ups, but children are welcome and supported to be themselves, no shhing required. The artistic voices and stories of m/others are platformed, but everyone is welcome within the audience. Expect an uplifting, supportive and empowering hour (and a bit) – in the middle of the day! So whether you’re in need of a bit of culture, a community or just an early lunch break – you are welcome!
Follow them on Instagram.
Italian Cultural Association Exeter
ICAE are a community roots organisation made up of Italians living in Devon and local people interested in Italian culture. Our aim is to keep Italian culture alive for the diaspora and also offer an insight into Italian culture to the community. Led by Valentina Todino who is a long time collaborator with Exeter Phoenix and the Cinema Programme.
Find them on Facebook.
Bill Douglas Cinema Museum
The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum is home to the foremost collection on cinema and moving image history in Britain. We are both an accredited public museum and an academic research facility and we hold a collection of over 90,000 items.
Find out more on their website or follow them on Instagram.
Simran Kaur Sanghera (Curation Intern at Bill Douglas Museum)
Simran Kaur Sanghera is an aspiring writer and curator currently in their final year at the University of Exeter. She works as a Gallery Assistant for TVF Media and are part of an internship scheme with the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, where she works through Cambridge Archival material as well as developing social media strategies, as a part of the scheme. Her creative work often centres on themes of grief, self-worth, and cultural identity, blending realism with tenderness to create stories that feel both intimate and universal.
The season is supported by the BFI through National Lottery funding.
