Braziers International Film Festival

Theo Panagopoulos
The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing
UK, 2024

Director Statement:
“The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing,” began in the summer of 2023 as an accidental encounter with film archives showing Palestinian flowers of the 1930s & 1940s. The footage, sitting undigitised and unseen for decades, was located just a 10 minute walk from my current home in Glasgow. The archives present a world that my Palestinian grandparents knew very well, a world that is now actively being erased through current narratives, imagery and violence. My film reclaims the footage as a form of testimony in a heightened and uncertain time, and as a form of resistance to cultural erasure.

Daisy Smith
Nightcore
Netherlands, 2023

Wharram Percy is a deserted mediaeval village in Yorkshire, England. Its demise is narrated by Tony, a retired farm labourer and amateur champion fish breeder. As his story unravels he is interrupted by the fate of his own village (Linton-on-Ouse), a troupe of Freestyle dancers and a paranormal society. These narratives converge across varying time periods and geographies to describe a recurring English history of evictions from land and property.

Rehab Nazzal
Vibrations from Gaza
Palestine, 2023

Vibrations from Gaza offers a glimpse into the experiences of deaf children in the besieged territory of Gaza, Palestine. The children, including Amani, Musa, Israa, and others, provide vivid accounts of their encounters of Israeli bombardment and the constant presence of military drones in their sky. The children describe their perceptions of missiles strikes through sensing vibrations in the air, trembling of the ground, and the resonance of collapsing buildings. The film also questions whether the deafness of these children is a natural or a consequence of Israel’s use of sonic weaponry.

Liberty Nam-Do Smith
My Exploding House
UK, 2024

My Exploding House follows a quest to find the truth behind a thirty year old memory, along the way connecting the dots between family, community, the power of place and the concept of home.

Siôn Marshall-Waters
Forest Coal Pit
UK, 2022

Two elderly brothers live together on a small farm where they have been since childhood. This super 8mm portrait explores the mundanity, vibrancy and intimacy of their relationship and hyperlocal world.

As they feed their livestock, tend to their garden and piles of scrap metal, the brothers discuss their views on elephants in China, lobster fisherman, ghosts and each other.

Mariana Castiñeiras
Exoskeletons
Hungary, 2022

A filmmaker who struggles with her fear of insects meets a neurologist with a peculiar obsession for beetles. Curious about what his passion can teach her, she decides to join him on his expeditions into the Hungarian woods.

Exoskeletons is a sensorial close-up to an unlikely encounter.

Julia Parks
Seaweed
UK, 2022

Seaweed explores the folklore, ecology, and history of seaweed in north Scotland. Voiced by seaweed harvesters, workers in the alginate factories, environmental activists, archaeologists, seaweed farmers behind the miracle resource. The film includes archive footage, oral histories and contemporary documentary footage of people working with seaweed.

Helen McCrorie
We know a better word than happy
UK, 2021

We know a better word than happy captures children’s delight in the possibilities for fun and learning in an urban green space established by community activism in Maryhill, Glasgow. A quarter of households in this area have no access to a private or shared garden and, following lockdown, the children express their rights to outdoor play, for learning, togetherness and resilience.