We’re excited to announce the 45 selected films for the 7th Braziers International Film Festival.
This year, we celebrate the 75th anniversary of Braziers Park School of Integrative Social Research with a special focus event, featuring the work of Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour and two films made at Braziers Park during Braziers International Artists’ Workshop (BIAW). We also present two film installations, alongside our barn screenings – which includes a programme put together by our guest-curators Mascara Film Club.
Across 3 days, from Aug 29 – 31, the festival presents a diverse range of films, voices and perspectives from around the world, interweaving ecological, social and cultural themes. Throughout the programme, we also focus on filmmakers and narratives from Palestine and Lebanon, highlighting memory, land, resistance, indigenous knowledge and care as forms of resistance against genocidal erasure, and the human and more-than-human co-dependencies that transcend borders and divisions.
We look forward to welcoming one and all to Braziers Park, for a collective weekend of cinema, conversation & community.
Celebrating Braziers: 75 years of curiosity, community and conscious change
* filmmaker in attendance
INSTALLATIONS
Open from Friday Aug 29 16:00 – Sunday Aug 31 16:00
Greenhouse, Braziers Park garden:
The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing
Theo Panagopoulos | 17′ | 2024 *
When a Palestinian filmmaker based in Scotland unearths a rarely-seen Scottish film archive of Palestinian wild flowers, he decides to reclaim the footage. This tender film essay questions the role of image-making as a tool of both testimony and violence when connected to entanglements between people and the land.
The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing trailer
Study, Braziers Park house:
The Earth Weavers
Rima Kaddissi | 26′ | 2025 | Lebanon
The Earth Weavers celebrates the collective journey back to the land. It’s a testament to the transformative power of communal care, where women come together to reclaim their ancestral knowledge, language, culture, and land. Their stories speak volumes about the profound connection between humans and the natural world, portrayed as a form of resistance against the oppressive forces that seek to disconnect us from our roots.
The Earth Weavers trailer
BARN SCREENINGS
* filmmaker in attendance
Fri Aug 29, 17:00
PERSONAL INTERIORS
programmer Eleanor Capstick
The Kittens’ Tea Party
MilleFeuille | 10′ | 2022 | Canada
In a quiet residential neighbourhood, the tension between domestic, wild and work animals is caught on home security camera, recorded through windows and souvenired in old postcards.
Lizzy
Susanna Wallin | 15′ | 2024 | USA
I inherited an electrical organ when my neighbour Lizzy died and all the notes all at once started sounding, when I plugging it in.
BOOKANIMA: Martial Arts
Shon Kim | 10′ | 2021 | Korea
An experimental animation project to give new cinematic life to books.
I guess this is a self portrait
Javi Martin | 1′ | 2024 | Spain
Beckham is handsome, rich, famous and travels a lot. He is exactly like me but completely opposite.
Icarus, Come
Ziya Lemin | 16′ | 2024 | Belgium
I found a bird on the sidewalk, and through filming him in my room, he became my roommate, my friend, and slowly, an image of our shared otherness.
Fri Aug 29, 19:30
COLLECTIVE MEMORIES
programmer Dave Grffiths
Along The Water
Rebecca Taouk | 20′ | 2024 | Lebanon *
A poetic and reflective journey tracing a stream of water in reverse—from the Mediterranean Sea to the summit of Qornet el Sawda, the highest peak in the Middle East. Through the eyes of four individuals—activists, scientists, and storytellers—the film reveals the profound connections between people and the natural world.
As I Belong to my Life
Sarah Bliss | 4′ | 2025 | USA
When aging bodies are assumed to be sexless and considered neutered, what does it look and feel like to reclaim our erotic power?
The Flesh of Language
Amanda Rice | 16′ | 2023 | Ireland
Establishes a parallel between interspecies and paranormal communication to engage with the barrier that typically separates science from esotericism.
THE SIGHT IS A WOUND
Parham Ghalamdar | 6′ | 2025 | UK *
A six‑minute video‑poem in which over fifty of my own oil paintings burn
as a meditation on the collapse—and funeral—of image‑making in the face of mass atrocity.
To M
Patricia Werneck Ribas | 12′ | Netherlands | 2025
A woman’s voice passionately addresses the enigmatic figure “M” in a narrative that initially portrays a positive shift as one colonial ruler replaces another.
Fri Aug 29, 21:30
DISSOLVING BOUNDARIES
programmer Mariana Castiñeiras
Ever Since, I Have Been Flying
Aylin Gökmen | 18′ | 2023 | Switzerland
Vakıf, a Kurdish man who grew up in a nomadic tribe in the mountains of southeast Turkey, recalls moments from his youth that have shaped his life.
Looking at the Sun
Cecilia Belén Sandoval | 11′ | 2023 | Belgium *
An astrophysicist and woman suffering from seasonal depression face the Belgian winter.
[sun] film
Derek Taylor | 3′ | 2025 | USA
An arrangement of found image sources from the 16th Century onward, the film looks at the changing representations of the giant star at the center of the solar system.
Configuration of a threshold
Paolo Natale, Daniel Rodríguez, Sandra del Moral Abolafia
| 9′ | Spain | 2024 *
On the periphery, the city’s waste accumulates to form illegal dumps. A new kind of life has emerged. It hides from the lights of humans, but the city reclaims what is its own. Gentrification, the death of one city, and the rebirth of another.
Wrecks of the day
Jean-Yves Roy | 8′ | 2025 | France
Mysterious blue lights have spread across the city. Some plants, the last sustenance of the wild and the dream, are developing curious abilities.
Vitanuova
Niles Atallah | 13′ | 2023 | Chile
In a fable made by hyper-mechanisms of the future, a message in an algorithmic bottle relives a story of extinction from the past to a clay humanoid in the present.
Sat Aug 30, 10:00 – 10:30 Braziers Park house
Open Talk/Workshop: Lebanon’s Biodiversity Under Threat: Can Cinema Make a Difference? | Rebecca Taouk
Filmmaker Rebecca Taouk leads an open talk and workshop about Lebanon’s biodiversity, outlining the challenges it faces and exploring how cinema can transmit this knowledge, raise awareness, and contribute to preserving threatened species and resources, as part of the UK tour of the Biodiversity & Cinema short films in partnership with the British Council Lebanon.
The workshop is presented in relation to two films in our programme from the Lebanese REEF Association’s residency project Biodiversity and Cinema: Along the Water by Rebecca Taouk (Collective Memories programme) and The Earth Weavers by Rima Kaddissi (installation).
Along the Water trailer
Sat Aug 30, 11:00
SOCIAL SPACES
programmer Julia Makojnik
Tan/Vatan
Homa Sarabi, Meenakshi Garodia | 7′ | 2024 | Iran/USA
A conversation between two women and their intimate experiences of love and life.
Testerep
Vincent Langouche | 15′ | 2024 | Belgium *
A team of scientists search for the lost island of Testerep in front of the Belgian coast venturing into artificial landscapes and virtual realities.
On Hannah Fields
Lewis Heriz | 3′ | 2024 | UK *
A portrait of an ancient patch of land in Derby, UK, that’s adopted by an ex-NHS Psychiatric Nurse and transformed – along with those who interact with it – through a cyclical system of recovery.
Nightcore
Daisy Smith | 27′ | 2023 | Netherlands *
The fate of a deserted medieval village is narrated by an amateur fish breeder, a troupe of Freestyle dancers and a paranormal society.
Bird Bird
Willow Senior | 6′ | 2024 | UK *
The playful coupling of the Meisner Technique and the mimicry of birdsong leads to an emotional exploration into connection and intimacy.
Sat Aug 30, 14:00
ENTANGLED LANDSCAPES
guest programmers Mascara Film Club
a river holds a perfect memory
Hope Pearl Strickland | 17′ | 2024 | UK/Jamaica *
Traces diasporic memory and family migration between the UK and Jamaica. Through the divergent and overlapping temporalities of working across archival footage, newly shot 16mm and LIDAR scans, the film uses water to track the impact of the industrial revolution and labour migration upon supposedly disparate communities.
A Thousand Thrashing Arms
Dina Mimi | 12′ | 2024 | Palestine/Netherlands
Juxtaposes scenes of human and non-human figures in movement, from statues and animals to bodies wrapped in cloth, depicted in states of captivity, traversing tunnels, or resisting from underground.
exits / entrances
Yen Lim | 11′ | 2024 | Singapore *
From Singapore to Yucatan, exits/entrances is an unplanned exploration of cultural unfamiliarity, language, thresholds and doors
Hole in the Stone
Holly Marie Parnell | 20′ | 2024 | UK
Meandering through various farms in the southeast of Ireland, Hole in the Stone captures the collective voice of a community in flux.
Once A Blue Always A Red
Michael Hanna | 7′ | 2024 | UK
Features the artist’s conversations with taxi drivers in Liverpool, discussing his plan to change which football team he supports.
Sat Aug 30, 17:00
OBSERVED ECOLOGIES
programmer Nick Jordan
A Telephone for God
Nicky Tavares | 11′ | 2025 | USA *
Breathe in to receive. Exhale to send. Inspired by the research of Marcel Vogel—IBM chemist turned spiritual scientist—this film oscillates between past and present, tuning into frequencies of human-plant communication and energetic healing.
Sanki Yoxsan
Azer Guliev | 15′ | 2024 | France
When Samir and Leyla decide to flee their families’ discord, Samir disappears the next morning. Leyla’s quest ensnares her, entwining her fate with his mysterious disappearance.
The Art of Looking
Andris Gauja | 16′ | 2024 | Estonia
Two seemingly different groups of people – astrophysicists who try to understand the world by looking at it through telescopes and slime researchers who study the micro-world of the smallest organisms through their microscopes – come to surprisingly similar conclusions about the nature of things.
Where the Wind Blows
Hana Elias | 16′ | 2024 | Palestine/USA *
Nassib returns to his Palestinian hometown of Shefa-’Amr after 50 years to revive an ancestral garden. Filmmaker Hana captures her family’s search for belonging as she intimately films the rituals and practices around their first olive harvest.
Sat Aug 30, 19:30
SPECIAL FOCUS: Larissa Sansour
Celebrating Braziers: 75 years of curiosity, community and conscious change
Familiar Phantoms
Søren Lind & Larissa Sansour | 42′ | 2023 | UK/Palestine
An experimental documentary about memory, history and trauma, Familiar Phantoms is inspired by anecdotes from Larissa Sansour’s own family history and childhood in Bethlehem, in occupied Palestine. Combining scenes filmed in a derelict mansion, Super 8 footage and private photos, the editing mimics the workings of memory, constantly revisiting the same imagery alongside new fragments in search of meaning – while alternating between storytelling and ruminations on memory.
Familiar Phantoms trailer, Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind, 2023.
Co-commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella and the Whitworth
Familar Phantoms screens with short films by Larissa Sansour and Rafael Sánchez, made at Braziers Park during Braziers International Artists’ Workshop (BIAW) – a 2 week annual residency programme established at Braziers in 1995 by artists Gill Ord, Bernadette Moloney, Andy Cohen and Simon Faithfull. Held for over 10 years, the residency hosted over 250 artists from across the world, and in 2010 evolved into Supernormal Festival. The screening marks the 75th anniversary of Braziers Park.
Sbara
Larissa Sansour | 8′ | 2008 | UK/Palestine
Referencing the 1980 cult classic The Shining by Stanley Kubrick, Sbara explores the castigation of Arabs in contemporary Western dialogue.
Wuthering Heights (Or, My Hollowed Eye )
Rafael Sánchez | 14′ | 1999 | USA *
Filmed on location at Braziers Park and inspired by the 17th century gothic revival manor house during August of 1999’s Braziers International Artists Workshop with the participation of that year’s artist residents, Wuthering Heights ( Or, My Hollowed Eye ) is a late 20th century gothic improvisation spirited by the supernatural undertones of Bronte’s gothic novel.
Sun Aug 31, 11:00
RADICAL INSTINCTS
programmer Joseph Lang
for here am i sitting in a tin can far above the world
Gala Hernández López | 18′ | 2023 | France
A woman dreams of the American cryptographer Hal Finney. A major economic crisis affects the cryptocurrency market, tens of thousands of people are cryogenized waiting for a better future.
IT IS WANTING
Jennet Thomas | 10′ | 2025 | UK *
A frenetic performance of striped, coded beings enmeshed in a system that’s of their own making, yet out of their control. A defiant, DIY lament to toxic automation.
Magic with small apparatus
Paul Tarrago | 7′ | 2025 | UK *
Super 8 stop motion, south London style. Includes feats with cards and ropes, legerdemain, sleights of camera, a perky river, and rare insights into the activities of a local magician-ventriloquist from the 1930s.
Say Wuff!
Fabian Podeszwa |16′ | 2024 | Germany *
A declaration of love to the beauty of simplicity and to the quirky oddities of life.
Sunny 16 Helsinki
Eve Le Fessant Coussonneau | 6′ | 2024 France *
Under the burning sun, on the border between Finland and Russia, two beings rave on an island. They seems to be the only ones foreseeing the
upcoming disaster.
Sun Aug 31, 14:00
DOCUMENTED REALITIES
programmer Festival Team
Atmospheric Soils
Nerea Calvillo, Maria Puig de la Bellacasa | 10′ | 2024 | UK *
Explores the ground as an ecology of air soil interactions through an open air soil archive.
Tipping Points are Irreversible
Katy McGahan | 2′ | 2025 | UK *
A short meditation on the concept of climate tipping points inspired by a walk around my neighbourhood in the aftermath of a snowstorm.
This is (for) The Sea
Renata Poljak | 15′ | 2025 | Croatia
Twelve-year-old Vanja has been catching and studying plankton for the past two years. Now equipped with his own professional plankton net, he conducts scientific research under the microscope.
Sinkholes
Karen Russo | 18′ | 2025 | UK *
A hallucinatory journey through a desert-bound future. Combining documentary footage with poetic narration, Sinkholes is a cinematic meditation on entropy, ecological disaster and post-industrial end-times.
The Last Skiers
Veronica Ciceri | 11′ | 2023 | Italy
A precious statement on the fragility of nature, told by a generation of Italian skiers who have seen the slopes they learned to ski on turn into arid, yellow hills.
Sun, Aug 31, 16:00
THE GLAISTER AWARD
Voted by the audience, the festival presents a film-maker with The Glaister Award. Named after the founder of Braziers, psychiatrist Norman Glaister, the award recognises a film which ‘makes a positive contribution to social development and action in the world today.’
The award winner receives homemade produce from the Braziers permaculture garden. The winning film is screened after the award ceremony. See previous winners here.