While the In-person festival in Berwick has come to a close, the festival continues to unfold online with a series of performances, screenings, in-conversations, exhibitions, podcast and commissioned texts until 30 September.

Buy your Online Pass here for £10 (or £15 with catalogue).

Please note: Online passes are geoblocked to the UK. If you are an artist, filmmaker, press, programmer, curator or associated professional based outside of the UK, you can apply for accreditation to access the programme here.

JOIN US FOR THE ONLINE FESTIVAL INCLUDING:

ONLINE FILM PROGRAMME

All films from our Berwick New Cinema Awardees and Focuses on SPS Community Media, Rajee Samarasinghe, Anti-Archive and Nguyễn Trinh Thi are available to watch online until 30 September. In our Essential Cinema section, films from the Void Project are also available, with S. Pearl Sharp’s Back Inside Herself available for a 24 hour period on 17 September. Please note that Amma Ariyan and One Way or Another are not available as part of the online programme. Find all the film available on our home page.

EXHIBITIONS NOW LIVE

Two online exhibitons as part of our Propositions – SEEMAWORLD by Seema Mattu and WHEN AMONGST OUR OWN by Danielle Braithwaite-Shirley featuring work by Shenece Oretha, Day Eve and Ebun Sodipo – are now live.

SEEMAWORLD is an immersive, multi-channel realm and streaming facility. It’s comprised of the mimicry of multiple amenities and services—which act as portals to a specific aspect of SEEMAWORLD. An interactive installation, it shows born-digital artefacts alongside digitised works of traditional media.

As a colony of SEEMAWORLD, BERWICKWORLD transports viewers firmly into the cinematics of the cinema and magnifies Fan Labour as behaviour, thought and form. —Seema Mattu.

SEEMAWORLD is accompanied with fan fiction by Zarina Muhammad and an online event Pasta and Argument Party on 15 September 7 pm.

WHEN AMONGST OUR OWN by Danielle Braithwaite-Shirley is now online featuring work by Shenece Oretha, Day Eve and Ebun Sodipo. This will be followed by a text by Kenya Sterling for our post festival publication.

When we are amongst our own our labels disappear. We become more than we usually are. We can finally get closer to ourselves, shedding a layer of unwanted eyes. This moment of real home amongst family is presented in a virtual tour around the 3D rendered city “FAM”. The city fam has been made as a tribute to the work of 3 artists: Shenece Oretha, Ebun Sodipo and Day Eve.

Like this space their works have held more than can be spoken, and have given rise for spaces like this to be conceived. Tread respectfully. —Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley

PODCASTS

A series of podcasts featuring each of the artists in our Berwick New Cinema programme in conversation with our programmers Jemma Desai, Christina Demetriou, Alice Miller, Myriam Mouflih and Herb Shellenberger. You can listen to them on our website here or wherever you normally listen to your podcasts.

ONLINE EVENTS PROGRAMME

All our events can be viewed live, dates and times below, and also watched back after they have happened on our website.

13th September – If From Every Tongue it Drips 

A special event screening Sharlene Bamboat’s If From Every Tongue it Drips (Canada, UK, Sri Lanka, 2021) co-presented with Open City Documentary Film Festival. The Festival presents a new captioned version of the film in collaboration with Collective Text in Glasgow.

The online programme features a specially commissioned video performance by Toronto-based musician Nick Dourado and writer-programmer Aaditya Agarawal. Together they trace the cultural lineages of music in the film spanning geographies, language and social movements. The programme also features an accompanying text by poet and writer Laila Malik.

15th September – Pasta and Argument Party

7 pm – Seema Mattu & Zarina Muhammad (The White Pube) in conversation at dinner.

15th September – 22nd September – NOTES

Our NOTES Section opens from 15th September for one week for accredited guests only. These are notes on our programming approaches this year, open for comment on a google doc.

16th September – Collaborative Performance by Zia Anger & Monica Mirabile

On Thursday 16th September from 7 – 8.30pm, filmmaker Zia Anger and movement artist Monica Mirabile invite you to a performative conversation, looking at their collaborative practice and towards a hypothetical future work.

This is a one time performance and will not be available to watch back after the live event has taken place.

17th September – Back Inside Herself

This programme features a 24-hour online screening of S. Pearl Sharp’s Back Inside Herself (US, 1984) in collaboration with Cinenova.

On Friday 17th September from 7 – 8.30pm, filmmaker and poet S.Pearl Sharp will be in conversation with London based poet Sarah Lasoye. This will be accompanied by a specially commissioned poem by Sarah Lasoye.

Described by the director as “a visual poem on identity”, Back Inside Herself shows a Black woman finding her own sense of self and rejecting hegemonic societal expectations of who she should be and how she should behave.

18th September – Nguyễn Trinh Thi

On Saturday 18th September from 12 – 1.15pm, filmmaker Nguyễn Trinh Thi will be in conversation with Dr Philippa Lovatt, Lecturer in Film Studies and Co-Director for the Centre for Screen Cultures at University of St Andrews. The conversation will focus on sound, environment and listening.

The programme is in partnership with Screen Cultures at St Andrews. It will also be accompanied by a text on Nguyễn’s work, Foraging in the Ruins, by Philippa Lovatt.

18th September – Rajee Samarsinghe

On Saturday 18th September from 7 – 8.30pm, filmmaker Rajee Samarsinghe will be in conversation with artist Joshua Gen Solondz. The programme is accompanied by a text written by Solondz.

19th September – The Void Project

On Sunday 19th September from 2 – 3.30pm, filmmaker and founder of The Void Project, Azza El-Hassan will be in conversation with Sheyma Buali, Director of the London Palestine Film Festival, discussing the role of archives and image making in Palestine.

19th September – Hair is Piece of head (머리는 머리의 부분)

On Sunday 19th September from 6 – 7.30pm, Sung Hwan Kim will be in conversation with  David Michael DiGregorio, aka dogr, and Hyun Jin Cho discussing his latest work, Hair is Piece of head.

24th September – A day of events reflecting on our programming for this year’s edition

Jemma Desai and Peter Taylor reflect on our NOTES section and the contribution of our accredited guests in conversation with Abby Sun.

Focus Discussion 1: Precarity, asymmetries and independence in/of artistic practices from grassroots to diaspora in South Asia

Co-Founders of SPS Community Media of SPS Community Media Shobhit Jain (dir Hailstorm) and Pinky Bramha Choudhury in conversation with filmmakers Rajee Samarasinghe, Sharlene Bammboat, Suneil Sanzgiri.

Co-curated and moderated with researcher and curator Abhishek Nilamber of ‘United Screens’ and SAVVY Contemporary. The event is kindly supported by Goethe-Institut London.

Focus Discussion 2 to be announced.

25th September – Anti-Archive

On Saturday 25th September from 11 – 12.30am, production company Anti-Archive will be in conversation with Roger Nelson and programmer Herb Shellenberger.

30 September – Work in Progress: Rising Up at Night Q&A

On 30 September from 6.30 – 8pm, join filmmaker Nelson Makengo in conversation with BFMAF programmer Herb Shellenberger for a discussion of Makengo’s upcoming feature Rising up at Night and clips of the new work.