Accessibility Settings

You can use these controls to adjust properties of the website’s presentation. Read more about the Festival’s Accessibility Guide

Programmes

17 October 2025
Hub

[2025 Opening Night] When a supernatural entity plagues a village community in war torn Northern Sri Lanka, a mother loses her son. Set in militarily occupied territory marked by 26 years of civil war, this hybrid docufiction made collaboratively, and secretly, with impacted Tamil communities lyrically examines the stories of missing people. A potent, elliptical protest poem moving with grace and purpose between disparate cinematic forms.

Run Time

70 mins

Year

2025
More Info
27 March 2025

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. Offering practical ways to sustain and develop your practice and community, the NCF is a relaxed space to reflect and make connections ahead of our Opening Night film.

Run Time

300 mins
More Info

Curated by artist-filmmaker Gail Pickering, Unsettled Grounds brings together works by graduates of the Goldsmiths MA Artists’ Film & Moving Image, each engaging with landscapes in states of transformation—whether shaped by environmental change, personal histories, or industrial decline.

Run Time

70 mins
More Info
17 October 2025
Hub

A film, installation, and exhibition by artist and filmmaker Harry Lawson, created in collaboration with young inner-city horse riders from Stepney Bank Stables in Newcastle. Reimagining Byker as the Wild West, the project blurs the line between fact and fiction, weaving together recontextualised iPhone footage shot by the riders, archival material from the North East Film Archive, and Lawson’s own cinematography.

Director

Country

Run Time

40 mins

Year

2025
More Info
30 March 2025

A hybrid, participatory movement and performance workshop developed by artist and PhD researcher Conal McStravick and Toronto/Tkaronto-based artist and community activist Mikiki based on the AIDS activist videos of Stuart Marshall (1949-1993). Marshall’s videos bookend the propagation of an influential, intersectional mode of AIDS video activism, propagated through UK-Canada transnational video networks.

Run Time

90 mins
More Info
4 August 2024  •  Free Entry

For the Berwick Bridge 400 celebrations come and say hello, at our market stand on Berwick Quayside! Our handy, portable film library will feature BFMAF curated films related to Berwick’s historic infrastructure and our commission Enceindre by Luke Fowler.

The Burr is a film library of stories made in and around Berwick – exploring its past and present, thinking of the future. Berwick residents & visitors can look through the films and watch them on demand. Have a chat with our staff who’ll show you something that interests you, if you’re not sure!

The library is an ongoing project, year-round it will pop up in community spaces in Berwick and host The Burr of Berwick events.

We hope the library triggers conversations and gets the ideas flowing. Maybe you know something about Berwick that we don’t!

What film would you like to see made / or to make yourself in Berwick? Could your interests, or work fuel a filmmaking discovery?

Monday 26 August, 10:00 • Tuesday 27 August, 10:00 • Wednesday 28 August, 10:00 • Thursday 29 August, 10:00

This hands-on workshop is perfect for anyone eager to dive into the art of filmmaking for the first time.

Are you 16-25? Interested in seeing how a film is made?

This summer, unleash your creativity and learn the art of storytelling for the big screen! Join us for an unforgettable experience at our free 4-day summer filmmaking workshop!

Connect with other film lovers, learn new skills, and bring your creative visions to life with help from some amazing creative talent.

No experience necessary – this is a taster to experience filmmaking for the first time!