At the core of the programme is a celebration of some of the most distinctive works of new cinema being made around the world today. The New Cinema Awards push against the boundaries of genre, form, and convention with liveness and agency. Since dispelling with a jury and competition selection in 2020, BFMAF offer a uniquely equitable spotlight on feature length and short films, each awarded a cash prize. We are pleased to announce the first four films of the 2025 programme, including three UK Premieres and a World Premiere.

The New Cinema Awards will include new works by numerous contemporary boundary-pushing filmmakers and artists. When the Phone Rang by Iva Radivojevic (Serbia, United States, 2024, UK Premiere) investigates dislocation and the nature of remembering in the context of 1990s Yugoslavia through the eyes of an eleven-year-old girl.

Memory is also central to Hope Strickland’s a river holds a perfect memory (United Kingdom, Jamaica, 2024, World Premiere), a multilayered work tracing diasporic memory and family migration between the UK and Jamaica through archival footage, newly shot 16mm, and LIDAR scans.

Invention (United States, 2024, UK Premiere) directed by Courtney Stephens is a remarkable microbudget drama exploring the process of grieving a complicated parent in which filmmaking itself becomes a part of the process.

Family expectations, class difference and psychological isolation are at the heart of Isadora Neves Marques’s My Sense Are All I Have to Offer (Portugal, 2024, UK Premiere), a subtly sci-fi film envisioning a reality where other people’s sensations can be accessed from a distance through a new technological invention, “sensory pills”.