Red carpet protestors chant ‘Dead women can’t vote’ at Suffragette

The red carpet was temporarily blocked but the event at Leicester Square in central London later resumed with a few women escorted away by security guards.

The women lay down on the red carpet and chanted “It is our duty to fight for our freedom” and “Dead women can’t vote” as the stars made their way around the press.

Activists said they wanted to bring attention to the cuts to domestic violence services.

Helena Bonham Carter told Newsbeat she’d never had a protest happen at one of her film premieres before but thought it was “fantastic”.

In an extended statement on their website, Sisters Uncut explained their opposition to government cuts: “Doors are being slammed on women fleeing violence”.

To gasps from the audience, Morgan said she had been dropped as a screenwriter from a film project only two or three years ago “because I was told I didn’t know how to flirt with the director”.

The film’s stars appeared to have even been in support of the demonstration, calling it a “perfect response” to the movie.

Meryl Streep is taking movie review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes to task for a lack of female film critics.

In an apparent homage to the characters in the historical film, demonstrators also let off smoke in the purple and green colours adopted by the suffragette’s Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). However, I think a film where it’s fronted not by one, but an ensemble of women and they’re not being amusing, it’s hard.

“But I am also here to represent – to show that all women of all backgrounds have rights and if they are not met we will take action until they are'”.

In the BBC interview, Streep-who’s been nominated 19 times for Academy Awards and won three-throws her hands up, saying “of course!” when asked if she’s a feminist. I will say that it has to do with the distribution of films, how they are financed.

Streep, who plays suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst, was joined at the gala by cast mates Helena Bonham Carter, Ben Whishaw, Brendan Gleeson and Anne-Marie Duff as well as Pankhurst’s great-granddaughters. “Dead women can’t vote”.

Suffragette is set to premiere at the BFI London Film Festival in the British capital on Thursday night (07Oct15).