News

4 February 2025
2025 Propositions
The Propositions programme features the UK Premiere of Morgan Quaintance’s Available Light, a screening of films by Stuart Marshall curated by Conal McStravick followed by a workshop and hybrid talk and live video essay presented by Abiba Coulibaly.

4 February 2025
2025 Exhibitions
The free Exhibitions programme features films from around the world, forming a constellation across Berwick-upon-Tweed. Including a World Premiere of Wendy Clarke’s Endless Love Tapes, ensemble work from over 100 artists Some Strings, a World Festival Premiere of Harry Lawson’s Stepney Western and UK Premieres of new work by Adam Piron and Cáit and Éiméar McClay.

4 February 2025
2025 Focus Programmes
This year’s Filmmakers in Focus are Ayanna Dozier and Eri Makihara whose work will be screening alongside Focus: Ways of Seeing Fanon, curated by Philip Rizk.

4 February 2025
2025 Essential Cinema
The Essential Cinema programme is a pluralist retrospective series, proposing revisions and additions to what might be considered canonical cinema. Circadian rhythms of the 80s bring to the fore creative collaborations, familial encounters and working lives.

4 February 2025
2025 New Cinema Award Winners
At the core of Festival programming is a celebration of some of the most distinctive works of new cinema being made around the world today. The 2025 New Cinema Award winners include 16 UK Premieres, 1 International Premiere and 3 World Festival Premieres.

22 January 2025
New Cinema Forum
The first edition of Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival’s New Cinema Forum is an invitation to artists, filmmakers, critics and arts/film workers to consider new orientations to creating, exhibiting and working collectively.

19 December 2024
First Look: Filmmaker in Focus
Eri Makihara is announced as our first Filmmaker in Focus.

19 December 2024
First Look: Propositions
Featuring a UK Premiere, unearthed artists video from the AIDS activist archive, and a hybrid talk and live video essay.

19 December 2024
First Look: New Cinema Awards
Three UK Premieres announced as part of our keystone programme, the New Cinema Awards.

27 August 2024
Mining Berwick’s Archive
Saturday 14 September 2024 11:00 – 12:30 The Council Chamber, Berwick Town Hall, Marygate, TD15 1BN For this years’ Heritage Open Days, The Burr of Berwick will be presenting the essential Northumberland mining film, The Blackhill Campaign, in Berwick’s historic Town Hall. Before the film we will take a moment to reflect together on what […]

14 August 2024
The Burr of Berwick presents ‘Wild Relatives’ @ Berwick Food & Beer Festival 2024
17th August 2024 | 2pm | The Straw Yard
BFMAF will be teaming up with Sustainable Food Berwick to bring you a screening of Wild Relatives directed by Jumana Mana and discussion exploring the founding organisation and principles of the Berwick Food and Beer Festival, an offshoot of Berwick Slow Food.

6 August 2024
Meet the Programmers
Watch the recording of this session above. With the Call For Entries now open for the 20th edition of Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, we are holding an informal online session for artists and filmmakers who wish to submit a work to BFMAF 2025. In this session, you’ll have the chance to chat […]

31 July 2024
August Public Programme Announced
The Burr Film Library @ Berwick 400 The Burr of Berwick Film Library returns to join celebrations of the 400th anniversary of the Berwick Old Bridge. Sunday 4 August 10:00 – 16:00 On the market at Berwick Quayside. For the Berwick Bridge 400 celebrations come and say hello, at our market stand on Berwick Quayside! […]

30 April 2024
Reviews
Take a look at some of the coverage of the 19th Berwick Film & Media Arts festival available to read for free online from Sight & Sound, Corridor8, International Documentary Association, The Quintessential Review, Slant Magazine and Burlington Contemporary.

7 March 2024
Give us your Feedback!
Thank you for attending the 19th Edition of Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival! We ask all attendees to fill in a survey telling us more about your experience. This is immensely helpful for us, for a few reasons: For Funding Applications We send this feedback to our funders, and your participation helps ensure that […]

31 January 2024
Essential Cinema
The 19th Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival will open with Ghassan Salhab’s newly restored debut feature film Phantom Beirut (Lebanon, France, 1989) from the Essential Cinema strand. Phantom Beirut is an extraordinarily articulate film on how the most brutal of power politics impact the psyche and inter-relations of people living through them. We will […]

31 January 2024
19th Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival Programme Announced
The 19th edition of Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival (7-10 March 2024) presents 47 films across 5 programmes chronicling desires for liberation. The programme grapples with the potency and ambivalence of hope – across complex emotional, social, and political entanglements. Spearheaded by a new identity stemming from a collaboration between designer Tom Joyes and […]

31 January 2024
New Cinema Awards
Featuring 14 UK Premieres, 2 European Premieres, 4 World Premieres, and 3 World Festival Premieres, this year’s New Cinema Awards celebrate some of the most distinctive cinema being made around the world today. Whether short or feature length, these films push against the boundaries of genre, form, and convention with liveness and agency. Take a […]

31 January 2024
Exhibitions
The 19th Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival will host a free programme of Exhibitions around the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed responding to the specificities of space and place. Cécile B. Evans presents Reality or Not (France, 2023), a video installation that narrates the intriguing tale of a group of students hailing from a high school […]

31 January 2024
Filmmakers in Focus
The 19th Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival celebrates the works of two internationally acclaimed filmmakers with new and retrospective works responding to the contemporary moment and re-interpreting the contexts of their production. Respectively, Basma al-Sharif and Eduardo Williams bring works examining histories that demand remembrance and cyclical narratives of the perpetual present. Basma al-Sharif’s […]

31 January 2024
Propositions
The Propositions strand is a discursive setting for filmmakers to expand on their work, demonstrating research, contexts and perspectives as a means to dig deeper into the questions, ideas and complications encountered through the filmmaking process. This will include the UK Premiere of Emila Beatriz‘s barrunto (Puerto Rico, United Kingdom, 2024) by followed by a […]

14 December 2023
First Look: 19th Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival
Announcing the Filmmaker in Focus, Propositions, and Essential Cinema strands as tickets go on sale!

13 December 2023
Filmmaker in Focus: Basma al-Sharif
Announcing Basma al-Sharif as the 19th Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival’s Filmmaker in Focus!

13 December 2023
First Look: Essential Cinema
Discover the 19th Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival with Essential Cinema, a pluralist retrospective proposing revisions and additions to what might be considered canonical cinema.

13 December 2023
First Look: Propositions
Featuring Emilia Beatriz and Onyeka Igwe, Propositions is a discursive setting for filmmakers to expand on their work, demonstrating research, contexts and perspectives as a means to dig deeper into the questions, ideas and complications encountered through the filmmaking process.

10 December 2023
Welcoming BFMAF’s newest team members!
Welcome Ane Lopez, Dawn Bothwell, Miranda Mungai and Millie McRobbie, all joining us ahead of the 19th Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival this March!

29 November 2023
Solidarity with Palestinian Peoples
29 November is UNESCO International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival are deeply grateful to all the Palestinian artists, filmmakers and cultural workers whom contribute to our Festival. We learn a lot from you. Our solidarity is unwavering.

24 October 2023
Save the 2024 Festival Dates!
Mark your calendars now for the 19th Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival We are excited to share that the 2024 Festival will take place over the long weekend of Thursday 7 to Sunday 10 March 2024. Save the dates to your calendar through the links below. We’ll look forward to seeing you this March.

24 January 2023
Watch it here first! Festival Premieres🥇
31 filmmakers have premiere screenings at BFMAF, including world festival premieres of new films from Jenny Brady (Ireland), Éiméar McClay & Cat McClay (UK), Basim Magdy (Switzerland), Sophio Medoidze (UK), Anya Tsyrlina & Sid Iandovka (USSR, Switzerland) and Christopher Ulutupu (New Zealand, UK). We can’t wait to share these films with you. WORLD FESTIVAL PREMIERES […]

24 January 2023
Encounter film across Berwick in our Exhibitions programme📍
Creating productive frictions inspired by buildings’ current and historic use, artists present new moving image works in Berwick’s Gymnasium Gallery, Town Hall, Visitor Centre, an 18th century ammunition store and a former Thorntons shop on Marygate. All exhibitions are free, open daily 10:00-17:00, 3-5 March. Cultuur • Dir. Fairuz Ghammam • Belgium • 2022 […]