Welcome to Selects

Join us to watch films from around the world as part of Sheffield DocFest’s official selection, plus live-streamed talks and Q&As, 4-13 June 2021

My List

Opening & Closing Films

Summer of Soul by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson will inspire the 10 days of our programme through its testimony of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival
Summer of Soul (...Or When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  • European Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 57m
In a personal meditation on the power of looking in his own life, Mark Cousins reveals how looking makes us who we are
The Story of Looking + Award Ceremony
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 30m

International Competition

Oscillating between present day and decades-old home videos, Charm Circle is a cinéma vérité portrait of an eccentric New York family navigating chaos
Charm Circle
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 19m
Two brothers, Vladimir and Pierre, wonder whether their Russian grandparents were working for the Soviet secret services in Paris before WW2
My Dear Spies / Mes chers espions
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 2h 14m
Following the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, Komori Haruka and Seo Natsumi chose to live in Rikuzentakata, a town affected by the disaster
Double Layered Town / Making a Song to Replace Our Positions / Niju no machi / Kotaichi no uta o amu
  • International Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 18m
Equatorial Constellations reflects on the role that São Tomé, a former Portuguese colony, played in saving hundreds of thousands of starving children
Equatorial Constellations
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 46m
A film about music as a form of communication in a state of exception, in which the camera becomes part of the improvisation
From the 84 Days / Aus den 84 Tagen
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 45m
Workers in a collectively-run factory in Croatia struggle to weather the organisational disputes and outside economic forces
Factory to the Workers / Tvornice Radnicima
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 45m
This Land is our Land! is a unique, multilayered film created by Indigenous filmmakers Isael and Sueli Maxakali and their collaborators
Nuhu Yãg Mu Yõg Hãm: This Land Is Our Land! / Nuhu Yãg Mu Yõg Hãm: Essa Terra É Nossa!
  • International Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 10m
Pedro Speroni’s prison portrait is built from the shared moments of different incarcerated men
Rancho
  • International Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 12m
Providing warmth, joy and solace, offering hope and strength for the future, Summer journeys with Vadim and his half-sister Christina
Summer / ЛЕТО
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 49m
Karachi’s feminists organise a woman’s march, facing Pakistan’s radical religious right
This Stained Dawn
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 29m
White on White is the video diary that filmmaker Viera Čákanyová kept while staying at the Polish Antarctic station in 2017
White on White / Bílá na Bílé
  • International Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 14m

UK Competition

Guided by his grandmother’s haunting Sumerian lament, 9-year-old mute Ali takes his favourite sheep for sacrifice
Ali and His Miracle Sheep
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 25min
Alive documents the life of opera singer Marilyn Minns, from childhood through to her diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease later in life
Alive
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 11min
A group of environmental campaigners pit themselves against the full force of the law in an effort to save a single tree from being felled
The Battle of Denham Ford
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 27min
CAUGHT mixes fiction and observational documentary methods to express the struggles of trans Latina women working in New York City’s sex industry
CAUGHT / CAER
  • European Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 1m
Divided into three parts, Cold Stack charts the melancholic decline of the oil rig industry in the Scottish Highlands
Cold Stack
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 12min
A love letter to one of Britain’s most interesting postcodes, Almost Liverpool 8 is an exploration Toxteth, Liverpool
Don McCullin: Almost Liverpool 8
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 29m
Shot over a moonlit night, The Elvermen is an atmospheric film that reveals the last of a hidden community hunting an endangered fish
The Elvermen
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 14min
From the confines of her home in England, a filmmaker embarks on a digital quest to track down an old friend who disappeared years ago in Japan
In The Space You Left
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 23min
Madness Remixed explores the image of exoticism portrayed by Josephine Baker in a 1926 performance entitled The Madness of the Day
Madness Remixed
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 11min
While awaiting the return of a younger lover, an agoraphobic film buff in her 70s recounts her history
Portrait Of Kaye
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 59min
The Quintessence considers the scientific study of outer space as a narrative, and analyses the hidden dreams and expectations of the researchers
The Quintessence
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 8m
In the Ecuadorian Amazon, a family travels deep into the jungle to escape the COVID-19 pandemic
The Return
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 17min
Overnight on 24th June 2020, graffiti reading ‘RIP SENI’ appeared outside Bethlem Royal Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in South London
RIP SENI
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 20min
Over the course of a year, Charlotte Ginsborg filmed the London housing co-operative that she lives in
Songs For The River
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 11m

Special Screenings

Using archival footage and new interviews with eyewitnesses, this film offers an emotionally charged account of that fateful day
9/11: One Day in America
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 16m
Following the life of one Afghan youth from 2001 to 2021, its protagonist as a prism to examine Afghanistan’s struggles over the past 20 years
My Childhood, My Country – 20 Years in Afghanistan
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 30m
Two friends embark on a journey to create a play that will reclaim their home country, Sierra Leone, from negative media narratives
Sing, Freetown
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 34m
Two intertwining narratives of 9/11, covering the two hour period in which terrorists conducted their attacks, and the 20 years that have passed since
Surviving 9/11
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 29m
The first part of a vivid and visceral three-part series which examines events from 1981 in the UK that defined race relations for a generation
Uprising
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 60min
Filmmaker Brian Hill and poet laureate Simon Armitage employ music, dance, and poetry to look at the use of art in dealing with catastrophe
A Pandemic Poem: WHERE DID THE WORLD GO
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 10m

Into the World

Venturing inside the palace walls, this film offers an insider’s perspective into the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, former president of Brazil
Alvorada Palace / Alvorada
  • European Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 20m
Andreas Voigt, one of the pivotal East German documentarians, returns to the borderlands of Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic
Borderland / Grenzland
  • International Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 37m
Carlos Ghosn – the former CEO of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, charged with financial crimes – stunned the world with his escape from Japan to Lebanon
Carlos Ghosn The Last Flight
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 39m
Delphine’s Prayers is the story of Delphine – a young Cameroonian woman – and her life in Belgium, in which Delphine talks to the camera with openness
Delphine's Prayers / Les prières de Delphine
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 30m
Using testimonies from soldiers in the Israeli army, Avi Mograbi provides insights on how a colonialist occupation functions
The First 54 Years - An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 50m
Vitaly Mansky encounters Mikhail Gorbachev, and through a series of contentious conversations, Gorbachev reflects on the major battles of his life
Gorbachev. Heaven / Горбачев. Рай
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 40m
Experimenting with images and sounds stored in his personal archive, a young Argentine director reflects upon the metaphysical ideas of Philip H Gosse
Homage to the work of Philip Henry Gosse / Homenaje a la obra de Philip Henry Gosse
  • European Premiere
  • •
  • 22min
Laura’s family struggle to reaffirm her as the girl she has always felt that she is, and to leave behind Oscar, the boy who she once was
If god were a woman / Si dios fuera mujer
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 11m
In a post 9/11 real-life thriller fabricated by the FBI, the story is told of a watershed terrorism case of seven innocent young men
In The Shadow Of 9/11
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 50m
Japanese documentarian Kazuo Hara tracks the legal struggles of long-term sufferers of Minamata disease across 15 years to create an epic 3 part film
MINAMATA Mandala
  • 3 films
Told mainly using Murray’s own words, this film follows the pioneering Black attorney, activist, priest, poet, and memoirist
My Name is Pauli Murray
  • European Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 31m
At the early voting line in Franklin County, Ohio, civic duty is made public. As the voters wait in line, contradicting ideologies come into collision
Party Line
  • International Premiere
  • •
  • 7min
Shamima Begum and Hoda Muthana made it into headlines worldwide when they travelled from their countries as teenagers to Syria and joined ISIS
The Return: Life After ISIS
  • European Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 25m
Journeying along hidden trails of money, power, and deception, journalist Antoine Vitkine delves into the unknown secrets of the art world
The Savior For Sale: The Story of the Salvator Mundi
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 35m
When a factory exploded in Natalia Garayalde’s hometown when she was twelve-years-old, she captured events on a video camera her father gifted her
Splinters / Esquirlas
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 10m
Luigina is a nurse and a mother of three who lives in the outskirts of Rome. The effects of the pandemic weigh heavily on her and her family
Tomorrow We'll See / Domani si vedrà
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 21min
A joyous observational film about the filmmaker’s son playing at home under lockdown
The World of Mindfulness / Zing Nim Sai Gaai
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 15min
Starting from Jeffery Robinson’s talk on the history of anti-Black racism in America, Who We Are explores the enduring legacy of white supremacy
Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 57m

Rebellions

Ancient Sunshine investigates coal extraction in the American West, and proposes that we foster solidarity against this violence
Ancient Sunshine
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 19min
Stop motion animation, 16mm actuality, and a 70s-inspired synth score prove an unlikely anti-racist combination in this musical fantasia
The Annotated Field Guide of Ulysses S. Grant
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 60min
This film-poem is a counterpoint between an act of protest, and the two catastrophic military operations held by the UN Stabilization Mission
Brazil Is Thee Haiti Is (T)here / O que Há em Ti
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 16min
Composed of everyday fragments, the story of Lisbon based hip-hop group Bataclan 1950, told collectively through a multimedia workshop
Chelas nha Kau
  • International Premiere
  • •
  • 57min
The first iteration of a five-part speculative experimental film contemplating an impending American civil war
Civil War Surveillance Poems (Part 1)
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 15min
Members of an underground theatre group in Minsk, Belarus together with thousands of fellow citizens, peacefully protest the contested 2020 elections
Courage
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 29m
Javad Soleimani – whose wife, Elnaz Nabiyi, was killed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – is given space to reflect and share his anger
Dear Elnaz / Elnaz Jan
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 23m
In a cinema letter to Jean Vigo, Lynne Sachs ponders the filmmaker’s 1933 classic Zéro de conduite in relation to the 2021 assault on the US Capitol
E•pis•to•lar•y: letter to Jean Vigo
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 5min
In Guinea, faced with a slow judicial response to a massacre of protestors in 2009, frustrated young plaintiffs rehearse for a hypothetical trial
Fixed barricade at Hamdalaye crossing
  • International Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 10m
A meditation on Black family preservation as resistance about the reunion and repair between Mike Africa Jr and his mother Debbie Africa
I'm Free Now, You Are Free
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 15min
In Ephraim Asili’s feature debut, a man inherits his grandmother's house, turning it into a Black socialist collective
The Inheritance / The Inheritance
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 40m
Just a Movement takes Jean-Luc Godard’s 1967 film La Chinoise as its starting point, reallocates its roles and characters, from Paris to Dakar
Just a Movement / Juste un mouvement
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 50m
The Monopoly of Violence gathers a panel of citizens in France to exchange views on the legitimacy of state violence
The Monopoly Of Violence / Un pays qui se tient sage
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 27m
A living testimony to the MOVE Organization founded by John Africa in 1972 that survived two catastrophic attacks from the Philadelphia police
MOVE: Confrontation in Philadelphia
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 2m
Through a mix of oral storytelling and song Brazilian musician Caetano Veloso gives testimony about his imprisonment by the military dictatorship
Narcissus Off Duty / Narciso em Férias
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 24m
An afternoon conversation with the musician, poet, sociologist, and thinker Negro Leo
Riverock / É Rocha e Rio, Negro Leo
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 2h 37m
In the 1970s, a journalist known as ‘The Mole’ infiltrated Guatemala’s most repressive government in order to help the resistance
The silence of the Mole / El silencio del Topo
  • European Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 33m
Police have been killing people in Columbus, Ohio, with near impunity. This film spotlights the families testimonies and resistance strategies
They Won't Call It Murder
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 20min
‘What if Women Ruled the Word" A group of actors gather to play the all-female government of an imaginary nation
Two Minutes to Midnight
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 48min

Rhyme & Rhythm

Searching for a means to mediate lockdown, pop star Charli XCX enlists the help of her fanbase to record a new album, collaboratively and virtually
Alone Together
  • International Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 20m
New York new wave blends with Latin beats: street scenes of Havana shot on Super 8 and 16mm fuse with concert footage of when the band travel to Cuba
BLONDIE: VIVIR EN LA HABANA
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 18min
A tender portrait of Innu poet, writer, filmmaker, and storyteller Joséphine Bacon, and her efforts to salvage and preserve her elders’ traditions
Call Me Human / Je m'appelle humain
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 18m
Two lovers discuss both the romantic ideal and human reality of the dynamic between artist and muse, drawer and drawn
Drawings of my BF
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 7min
The story of three Aboriginal brothers, who formed a young dance company and, with its founders and alumni, turned it into a First Nations powerhouse
Firestarter - The Story of Bangarra
  • European Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 35m
In a transgressive production of Les Indes galantes, various forms of urban dance such as hip-hop, krump, break, and voguing meet classical music
Gallant Indies / Indes galantes
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 48m
An anti-rockumentary portrait of outspoken post-punk performer Robert Lloyd (The Nightingales)
King Rocker
  • Festival Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 30m
On a corner-lot in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, 14-year-old Zebiba trains to become a champion athlete
Lift Like a Girl / "Ash Ya Captain (عاش يا كابتن)
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 32m
A fascinating look at the uncompromising work and life of no wave icon Lydia Lunch
Lydia Lunch - The War Is Never Over
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 18m
An intimate portrait of ageing and friendship as ‘Maisie Trollette’, Britain’s oldest drag artiste, prepares for the performance of a lifetime
Maisie
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 16m
After the filmmaker’s father sells the family home and pre-plans his funeral, choir practice seems like his only remaining solace
Men Who Sing
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 30m
Comics come to life on screen in this celebration of queer cartoons, zines and graphic novels and the artists, activists, and writers who made them
No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics
  • International Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 13m
Tragicomic musical theatre and punk cabaret combine through the performances of Ukraine’s Dakh Daughters
Roses. Film-Cabaret / Рози. Фільм-кабаре
  • International Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 18m
Armed with her camera, actor-turned-director Yaël Abecassis trails her mother, the legendary Moroccan singer Raymonde
Raymonde el Bidaoia
  • European Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 17m
Artist and choreographer Cecilia Bengolea collaborates with Jamaica’s dancehall scene, capturing the cultural influences within the art community
Shelly Belly inna Real Life
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 24min
Intertwining her own images with those filmed by Chantal Akerman, Vivian Ostrovsky muses on the role of music in Akerman’s films
SON CHANT / SON CHANT
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 13min
The connective power of music transcends physical and ideological borders when the Vocal Vidas, are invited to play their first show in America
Soy Cubana
  • International Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 20m
Ishariah Johnson, known as ‘Stormskater’, shares insight into the skating community, exploring issues of appropriation, ownership, authenticity
Stormskater
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 6min
Mixing anime, archive, and live-action footage, former players of the Japanese women’s volleyball team reunite to share their memories
The Witches of the Orient / Les Sorcières de l'Orient
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 40m
Sitting before Chantal Akerman, world famous cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton talks about her life and art, before playing various short pieces
With Sonia Wieder-Atherton / Avec Sonia Wieder-Atherton
  • 51min

Ghosts & Apparitions

As surveillance becomes a fixture of everyday life, All Light, Everywhere interrogates the complexity of an ‘objective’ point of view
All Light, Everywhere
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 49m
All of Your Stars Are but Dust on My Shoes tracks the public administration of light and darkness as an essential policing tool
All of Your Stars Are but Dust on My Shoes
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 17min
Lulling to migratory rhythms, filmmaker Humberto González Bustillo mournfully records bygones, whilst yearning for the familiar
Aphorisms of the Lake / Aforismos del Lago
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 26min
In El Quiñon, a town devastated by Spain’s financial crisis, the first generation of children have now become teenagers, living in a ghost town
Barataria
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 49min
On the west coast of Denmark, two elderly women are preparing a small beach hotel for the oncoming season
Before the Guests Arrive
  • 18min
In 1954, 22-year-old Mamaddi Jaunarena took a boat from Le Havre to New York. However, her journey began before that, in her hometown Ortzaize
Blue sky / Zerua blu
  • International Premiere
  • •
  • 14min
Emily Chao’s Bruce Takes Dragon Town is a meditation on displacement, historical disembodiment and the power of cinema to immortalise lost souls
Bruce Takes Dragon Town
  • 15min
The filmmaker lives in a dark and cold stone-paved town. Leafing through photographs, her grandmother unravels a memory
The Falling Kite / 斷線風箏
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 42min
Rokhaya Marieme Balde, a young filmmaker, returns to her home in Dakar to make a film about local historical figure, Aline Sitoe Diatta
Seeking Aline / À la recherche d’Aline
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 27min
One night in a small apartment four people talk about their fears, beliefs, and dreams. Time seems circular; life is a waiting room
Golden Flask / Auksinis Flakonas
  • International Premiere
  • •
  • 28min
In some of Mander's most radical work, working class women describe their living conditions in London, Derby, Rhondda and Northamptonshire
Homes for the People
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 23min
How to Invent Reality is a filmic essay about how filmmaker Jon Bang Carlsen manipulates reality to reach some kind of subjective truth
HOW TO INVENT REALITY
  • 30min
With In Posse, Charlotte Jarvis documents a quest she took to make semen from ‘female’ cells
Charlotte Jarvis: In Posse
  • 46min
The Irish west coast’s harsh yet graceful landscape is the setting for this documentary comedy about Jimmy dreams of a woman to share his life with
IT'S NOW OR NEVER
  • 32min
Kalsubai explores the legend and identity of Kalsu, a Goddess of India’s Mahadeo Koli people
Kalsubai / Kalsubai
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 20min
Using hand-processed 16mm film, direct animation techniques, and digital renderings of Kashmir’s mountains, Suneil Sanzgiri explores political lineage
Letter From Your Far-Off Country
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 18min
In the memorial park for the great dictator lies a square named "Liberty". Wood LIN uncovers legacies of authoritarianism in contemporary Taiwan
Liberty Square / 自由廣場
  • International Premiere
  • •
  • 12min
Angelo Madsen Minax returns to his Michigan hometown to make a film about a broken criminal justice system
North By Current
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 26m
After two decades of avoiding the Qing Ming festival tradition of grave-sweeping, Liao Jiekai visits the graves of his ancestors
On Memory / 关于记忆
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 34min
One Image, Two Acts examines the photographic archives of British Petroleum during its operations in Iran
One Image, Two Acts / Yek Tasveer, Do Bardasht
  • 45min
People say that what happens in dreams is the opposite of that which unfolds in reality. But sometimes, reality itself is like a dream
One World One Dream / 一中
  • 20min
Caves and bunkers on Jeju Island, South Korea, are turned into camera lenses and projection screens, connecting the past and present
"The red filter is withdrawn." / "레드필터가 철회됩니다."
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 12min
In Resampling the Past, the filmmaker uses a modern perspective to re-edit archival footage showing Taiwan between 1945 and 1985 as a musical
Resampling the Past / 昔日拼貼
  • 16min
Two journeys take place. One is a return by rail, passing through two continents. The other is an old family photograph that traces wartime life
Return / 回程列車
  • International Premiere
  • •
  • 20min
Using folklore and myth, Saudade reimagines the rituals of the early Eurasians, to tell the story of culture-displacement and the loss of a language
Saudade / Saudade
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 20min
History is the interpretation of linear signs and symbols. By decontextualizing the signs, the images are liberated
A Short History of Decay / 解體概要
  • 6min
“Cooking is a kind of loving.” his film encapsulates the spirit of the 1960s in a gloriously entertaining inventive tribute to good food
Something Nice to Eat
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 21min
Adapted from the filmmaker’s memories, this personal film displays the complexity of identity and the shifting moods of displaced people
The Time to Live and the Time to Die / 童年往事
  • 1h 58m
This film transforms personal and collective familial memories into a reworking of The Flying Dutchman, wherein they are doomed to sail the oceans
This Shore: A Family Story / 此岸：一個家族故事
  • 1h 2m
A self-made family unit of two dykes and a trans man enact a public sex ritual to celebrate an ideal or hoped-for interpersonal multiplicity
Two Sons and a River of Blood
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 10min
Looping roads around San Francisco’s Twin Peaks, this structural film utilises Wong’s conceptual explorations to create a stunning, sensual work
Twin Peaks
  • International Premiere
  • •
  • 50min
A dramatised documentary featuring Adrienne Corri, made to recruit women for training as nurses in ‘mental hospitals.’
The Troubled Mind
  • 20min
A mind boggling “coincidence” leads filmmaker, Jay Rosenblatt, to track down his former classmates to see if they remember a bullying incident
When We Were Bullies
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 35min
Three elderly workers of the land live in a small community in the outskirts of Bauta, Cuba, performing simple daily rituals
The Whisper of the Leaves / El Susurro de Las Hojas
  • European Premiere
  • •
  • 16min
Memories of Brazil’s history of slavery overflow into ghostly, manipulated archival images of ethereal landscapes
The White Death of the Black Wizard / A Morte Branca do Feiticeiro Negro
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 10min
In the Mato Grosso state of Brazil, an audience of more than 1,000 Enawene Indians view images depicting their Yaõkwá ritual
Yaõkwá, Image and Memory / Yaõkwá, Imagem e Memória
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 21min
In the intimacy of a deserted living room, a series of telephone conversations take place between a superstitious mother and her gay son
The Year of the White Moon / God Beloi Luni
  • International Premiere
  • •
  • 21min

Northern Focus

This film explores the links between Bradford’s religious diversity, peace heritage, and grassroots activism
The Branches are Hope; The Roots are Memory
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 7min
Growing Love conveys the joy of watching plants grow. Beginning with the wonder of a seed, how can life germinate from such a tiny little thing?
Growing Love
  • 7min
Hanging On is a docu-drama spotlighting the strength of a community in Oulton, Leeds, who live on a former coal board housing estate facing eviction
Hanging On
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 10min
Ladislav moved from Slovakia to Page Hall in Sheffield in 2012 to become a Muay Thai and K-1 kickboxing champion
Horvath
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 45min
Jun explores the ideas of South Korean craftsman Jun Rhee, and his view on the importance of handmade ceramics
Jun
  • World Premiere
  • •
  • 6min
Sheffield is reeling from the collapse of heavy industry - Tales from a Hard City follows four individuals as they battle for survival in this city
Tales from a Hard City
  • 1h 20m
Felix contends with the unpredictable and consuming nature of Tourette’s syndrome, while also navigating the trials and tribulations of adolescence
Tictoc
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 22min

Retrospective

Amine features a tapestry of voices that reveal the multi-faceted and complex experiences of Black womxn in the UK today
Amine
  • 12min
Homoerotic fantasies take over the museum the attendant supervises when a painting depicting scenes of slavery becomes a tableau vivant of desire
The Attendant
  • 8min
A ruined military fortress outside Havana has become a clandestine gay cruising spot, giving shelter to Cuban homosexuals and a culture of resistance
Batería
  • 15min
Between melanin and far away planets, BLACKN3SS dives into the journey of the Black youth of São Paulo city
BLACKN3SS / NEGRUM3
  • 22min
Activists, community leaders and the public share their experiences of harassment at the hands of the police in this 1978 documentary
Blacks Britannica
  • 54min
Menelik Shabazz’s looks at 1981, which began tragically with the death of 13 young Black people in a fire at a birthday party in New Cross, London
Blood Ah Go Run
  • 20min
Set to tones of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong’s honeyed rasp, Bloom is a queer African pole dancer’s adaptation of A Midsummer Night Dream
Bloom
  • 5min
A healing therapy expressed in four poems, in which Dafne C. wanders through the many feelings they had after her own mother's rejection
BMB (Black, Muslim and Bi)
  • 7min
A film about transformation and identity, Menelik Shabazz’s pioneering film is a love story that traces emotional and political growth.
Burning an Illusion
  • 1h 41m
Fetish, a multi-dimensional being, bestrides the streets of New York City. He reveals his power through death and rebirth.
Fetish
  • 17min
A personal diasporic journey that uses Windrush Day to focus on those that move and have been moved, those who stay and cannot leave
Fi Dem
  • 6min
Zinzi Minott reflects on the first National Windrush Day which sits in the middle of UK Pride Month, and seems to get lost among it
Fi Dem II
  • 9min
This work draws from personal and familial archives to chart several Black Caribbean journeys and narratives
Fi Dem III
  • 11min
In Brixton from the late 1950s to the present day, Clovis Salmon (aka ‘Sam the Wheels’) captures accounts of everyday life, protest and people
The Great Conflict, Brixton Riots & Other Films
  • 43min
Queer activist and artist Ajamu Ikwe-Tyehimba prepares to leave Brixton for an exhibition of his work in Huddersfield, his hometown
THE HOMECOMING: A short film about Ajamu
  • 15min
JUS SOLI opens up a discourse on the Black British experience: interrupting the emotional transition between generations and questioning being British
JUS SOLI
  • 16min
In this consideration of the life of Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes, filmmaker Isaac Julien invokes Hughes as a Black gay cultural icon
Looking for Langston
  • 40min
The Mangrove case began when around 150 Black people protested against long-term police harassment of the Mangrove Restaurant in Ladbroke Grove
The Mangrove Nine
  • Documentary
  • •
  • 37min
MONTERO is a tour de force of 3D art. Nas goes on a journey from the Garden of Eden to Satan's lap, all the while celebrating and embracing who he is
MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)
  • 3min
This short video explores some of the issues raised when Black athletes are called upon to ‘represent’ what have been historically seen as ‘White’ nat
The Nation's Finest
  • 7min
The People’s Account looks at Tottenham’s Broadwater Farm Estate, the scene of rioting between police and residents in 1984
The People's Account
  • 52min
The Psychosis of Whiteness sheds light on society’s perceptions of race and racism by exploring cinematic representations of the slavetrade.thth
The Psychosis of Whiteness
  • 1h 17m
Jackie is pregnant but knows it’s not her husband’s. She says she hasn’t slept with anybody else, but now she doesn’t know if she is losing her mind
Second Coming
  • 1h 45m
Alongside a poem created and narrated by poet and artist Yasmin Nicholas, three ancestors visit the narrator to bring her gifts of encouragement
Sequence to a Dream
  • 4min
Something Said is a gestural letter to Yvonne Ruddock, the 16-year-old whose birthday was being celebrated the night of the 1981 New Cross fire
Something Said
  • 10min
In the summer of 2020, jazz musician and composer Xhosa Cole attended a Black Lives Matter protest in Birmingham which left a profound mark on him
Stationary Peaceful Protest
  • 12min
A portrait documentary about 93 year old Clovis Salmon, telling the story of Clovis’ journey from Jamaica 1930 to the present day
Super Sam
  • 44min
A rare video portrait in deliberately unbalanced colours, made by Trevor Mathison and Edward George and produced with Black Audio Film Collective
Three Songs on Pain, Time and Light
  • 25min
Octavia’s mother Eugenia wants to return from Dominica to London to live with her daughter, but old resentments resurface
Twilight City
  • 52min
UMBILIC is an essay film that expands on the current discourse of Hydrofeminism, following the line of a Black Feminist Geographical framework.
Umbilic
  • 15min
where did we land is an experimental essay film interrogating the effect of images of anti-Black violence produced and reproduced in film and media.
where did we land
  • 30min
The words of poet Audre Lorde and Kenyan writers Wambui Mwangi and Ndinda Kioka intermingle as various women’s voices are overlaid upon drawings of wo
the words i do not have yet
  • 11min

DocFest Exchange

Traveling from Malawi to California, farmer Anita Chitaya faces her greatest challenge: persuading Americans that climate change is real
The Ants and the Grasshopper
  • International Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 14m
Along the coasts of Europe, volunteers work to rescue coastal wildlife. As the climate crisis worsens, their task becomes increasingly difficult
From the Wild Sea / Fra det vilde hav
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 18m
Day in the Life explores the ordinary obstacles Indigenous families face as they move through an ordinary day
Day in the Life
  • 32min
See the world from the viewpoint of a twig, an atom, a bear, a bacterium, a mountain or a galaxy, in a cinematic animation about everything
Everything
  • 11min
At the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, astronomers listen for signs of extraterrestrial life
The Great Silence
  • 17min
In GUNDA, Kossakovsky movingly recalibrates our moral universe, reminding us of the inherent value of life and the mystery of all animal consciousness
GUNDA
  • 1h 33m
The Karrabing Film Collective use filmmaking as a form of Indigenous grassroots resistance and self-organisation
KARRABING FILM COLLECTIVE - SHORTS PROGRAMME
  • 3 films
Symbiotic Earth explores the life and ideas of Lynn Margulis, a radical scientist, whose unconventional theories challenged the status quo
Symbiotic Earth
  • 2h 27m
Micro Resistances focuses on the ongoing systemic war waged by transnational corporations against the seed
Who is Afraid of Ideology? Part III - Micro Resistances
  • 31min
What will future generations think of us? Will they look back on us in despair? Marc Bauder’s travels the world, asking scientists these questions
Who We Were / Wer wir waren
  • UK Premiere
  • •
  • 1h 54m
Windjarrameru, The Stealing C*nt$ blends Indigenous storytelling with modern worries over environmental degradation and substance abuse
Windjarrameru, The Stealing C*nt$
  • 35min
Three wildly varying accounts are offered by members of an Indigenous Australian family for the cause of their boat's breakdown
Wutharr, Saltwater Dreams
  • 29min

Talks

This pre-recorded conversation is available to listen free of charge
Sonic Register: British black womxn and onscreen performativity
  • 2h 0m
Jon Bang Carlsen, one of Denmark’s most celebrated filmmakers, joins Marc Isaacs to discuss the necessity of inventing reality.
The Art of Staging Reality: Marc Isaacs in conversation with Jon Bang Carlsen
  • 60min
Lydia will speak about being the star of Beth B’s new film, The War Is Never Over
So Real It Hurts: In Conversation with Lydia Lunch
  • 60min
Moderated by Soukaina Aboulaoula, this event invites performance artists Geraldine Snell and Mohamed Abdelkarim to discuss their practices.
How to perform (in) a crisis: Geraldine Snell & Mohamed Abdelkarim
  • 60min
The BAFTA nominated directors Betsy West and Julie Cohen join us for this year’s BAFTA masterclass.
BAFTA Masterclass: Betsy West & Julie Cohen
  • 60min
Campbell X – writer, director and guest curator – talks to filmmakers from his programme, Destroy | Disturb | Disrupt - Decolonizing Queer Desire.
Reframing Our Desires
  • 60min
Between Reminiscence and Reactivation is a conversation framed around artists whose work with archival materials.
Between Reminiscence and Reactivation: a collective reflection
  • 60min
The British-Nigerian historian and broadcaster joins us for this year’s BBC Interview.
BBC Interview: David Olusoga
  • 60min
A panel of filmmakers and activists discuss how film can reframe conversations and foster dialogue and understanding.
The Return: Life After ISIS - reframing the narrative
  • 60min
A meeting between the artists in our exhibition ‘Dialogues: Emily Chao & Al Wong’
Emily Chao & Al Wong in Conversation
  • 60min
Join us in conversation with Mark as we delve into how looking can paint a portrait of our culture.
Story of Looking: In Conversation with Mark Cousins
  • 60min