During a slow shift at a bar, a bartender is told by their manager to be friendlier with male customers to increase sales, forcing her to confront how often women are expected to trade boundaries for financial security.
A moving look at how we attach narratives and memories to physical places, Before They Sold the Sky explores director Kai Reynolds’ family history and the impact of forced removals under apartheid.
Framed as the next best thing, a young author struggles to finish his long-awaited sophomore novel. Overwhelmed by mounting pressure from his publisher, he impulsively escapes to the beach in search of distance from his failing work. However, a series of trampled sandcastles forces him to realise he isn’t so alone after all, as he is taught an unconventional lesson by an unconventional stranger.
A triathlete living and training in Al-Naseem district, exploring how the sport becomes more than just competition, but a way of life built on discipline, endurance, and commitment. Through his daily routine and personal journey, the film highlights the challenges of pursuing an intense sport while balancing everyday life, offering a closer look at ambition and perseverance within an unexpected environment.
In northern Morocco, a massive fence looms over the landscape. Within it lies 12 square kilometers of Europe. The port of Melilla is one of the last remaining outposts of Spanish colonialism in Africa and a place where different cultures intersect. Distant voices tell the stories of the city. Caught between the colonial past and modern migration policies, they offer a glimpse into life at one of the most militarized borders in the world
Based on the account of a mother and a grandmother about the murder of a travesti, this short documentary explores the dreamlike state—that territory between memory and imagination—of a childhood recollection. Using Ecuadorian archival footage from the 1990s and found footage, it weaves a micro-narrative about memory, death, and absence. An attempt to escape oblivion and become eternal through cinema.
Working with the archive, I observe how documentary memory conflicts with personal memory—this sense of displacement and substitution creates a complex system of distortions, reminiscent of a dream. I am fascinated by how layers of memory intertwine, erase each other, rewrite, and form new meanings.
Laisul, a Bangladeshi immigrant now living in the UK, attempts to navigate Birmingham through driving lessons, conversations in cars, and phone calls from home. Filmed inside vehicles and among construction sites, blocked roads, and sprawling South Asian neighbourhoods on the city’s outskirts, the work reflects on mobility, belonging, and displacement, while offering a glimpse into the lives of Bangladeshi communities who have made Birmingham their home. As the artist learns to drive in a city seemingly built around cars, encounters with friends, driving instructors, and archival traces of Bangladeshi political figures reveal Birmingham’s deep connections to Bangladesh and its diaspora. Moving between intimate conversations and urban observation, the film unfolds as a portrait of a city in transition, where personal experiences intersect with migration, infrastructure, and histories that continue to travel between Birmingham and Bangladesh.
A faceless figure on a quiet journey of release. Cradling a sheeted pillow, they moves through desert rain and across a river, carrying an unseen weight. shot in negative, they ghostly figure becomes a symbol of transition. In the final act, they buries the pillow, while fire flickers beside them suggesting both surrender and persistence. The film reflects on the quiet rituals of letting go, inviting viewers to project their own meanings onto this universal experience of transformation.