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Programmes

Friday 8 March, 14:00 • Sunday 10 March, 10:45

The first of two screening programmes animating the work of Basma al-Sharif, BFMAF24 Filmmaker in Focus.

Born stateless and of Palestinian heritage, her work explores cyclical political histories and conflicts. In films and installations that move backward and forward in history, between place and non-place, she confronts the legacy of colonialism through satirical, immersive, and lyrical works.

Run Time

89 mins
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9 March 2024

Marking the centenary of her birth, BFMAF presents a new restoration of the seventh and final feature of Leida Laius, one of Estonia’s most distinctive directors. The tenacious Valentina, recently freed from prison in Soviet Russia, heads back to her native Estonia on a quest to find her son Jüri. A Stolen Meeting touches on powerful themes of migration, rootlessness, reconciliation and motherhood at the end of the Soviet Era.

Director

Country

Run Time

101 mins

Year

1988
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8 March 2024

Nadia El Fani’s pre-Jasmin Revolution espionage fable follows our hero Kalt as she hijacks the airwaves to broadcast political messages from a remote mountain village in Tunisia. Things quickly turn into a sexually charged game of cat-and-mouse with French intelligence officer Julia as the pair struggle with oppositional missions. Brimming with queer and revolutionary potential Bedwin Hacker is keenly critical of the security apparatus of the French state and its targeting of immigrant communities.

Director

Countries

Run Time

107 mins

Year

2003
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8 March 2024

An open, drop-in conversation inviting responses to the Festival’s programme of films in relation to the complications of home – or hyem in Northumbrian dialect.

When even the most basic understanding of home as residence/shelter is not guaranteed, we open up this theme to an expansive conversation that asks: who has the right to a home? What underlies the commonplace idea of a home? Where does land figure in our perceptions of home?

Run Time

60 mins
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9 March 2024

An open, drop-in conversation inviting responses to the Festival’s programme of films, considering environmental grief, care and survival strategies in difficult times – and the flexible binary between who/what and how/where we nurture.

Join us and the Southern Uplands Partnership in an expansive conversation.

Director

Country

Run Time

15 mins

Year

2022
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8 March 2024

A pair of star crossed platonic lovers take flight from society in Isao Fujisawa’s surrealist road trip through 70s Japan. Channelling the avant-garde spirit of the American New Wave, Bye, Bye Love establishes a dazzling universe of psychedelic poetics to narrate Utamaro and Giko’s search for freedom and liberation in the free love era. Nuanced depictions of gender fluidity and queer relationships mark it out as a seldom-seen gem of countercultural cinema

Director

Country

Run Time

86 mins

Year

1974
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10 March 2024

An open, drop-in conversation inviting responses to the Festival’s programme of films considering what and who we feel responsible for, where a sense of duty lies, and whether this is individual or collectively shared?

With the King’s Own Scottish Borderers Regiment Association, who will be bringing their own converted cine film material, alongside the Northumberland Archives footage of border regiments.

Run Time

60 mins
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7 March 2024

Full of ghosts and memories, Ghassan Salhab’s debut feature film is set in the late 1980s, towards the end of Lebanon’s Civil War. Protagonist Khalil returns to Beirut under a new identity, and to a confrontation with those he left behind following his apparent death a decade earlier. Featuring documentary elements and interviews with the lead actors, Phantom Beirut is a haunting exploration of the official silences and collective amnesias that stalk the lives of those who live through conflict.

Director

Countries

Run Time

121 mins

Year

1998
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7 March 2024

We invite you to visit a showcase of animations created by students from six schools in Berwick & Tweedmouth with locally based artists Robin Webb and Chloe Smith!

Library: Yrs 3+ 4 at Holy Trinity First School, Yr 4 at Berwick St Mary’s & Norham St Ceolwulf’s Church of England First Schools, Yr 4 at Tweedmouth West First School,

Visitor Centre: Yr 4 Tweedmouth Prior Park First School and Yr 8 at Tweedmouth Middle School (made in Yr 7).