Babamamadada

Director: Sarah Tremlett

Year: 2025

Dark undercurrents interact in the lives of Victorian artist – James McNeill Whistler – and a bargeman (one of poetry filmmaker Sarah Tremlett’s ancestors) on the River Thames in London. Based on Whistler’s painting Nocturne in Blue and Gold, Old Battersea Bridge, the poem is written in neo-symbolist mode and the contemporary footage is of the same view as the original. The soundscape by leading Belgian composer Marc Neys, though not inspired by Debussy, evolved from Tremlett’s fascination with his repetitive musical phrases, and his friendship with Whistler. Nocturne for a Lighterman is taken from TREE, a forthcoming family history chronicle by Sarah Tremlett, and is an experiment with painting with film.

Director: Sarah Tremlett

Year: 2022

Shakespeare’s male-dominated Ophelia in Hamlet committed suicide by drowning. This film is a warning address to all women but directed at Elizabeth Siddall, known for playing Ophelia in the famous Pre-Raphaelite painting by John Everett Millais. Life imitated art, since Elizabeth caught pneumonia whilst posing in a cold bath for the picture, and was also dominated by her unfaithful and controlling husband Dante Gabriel Rossetti, causing her to also commit suicide. In the UK alone ‘200 women take their own lives every year, and nearly 30 women attempt to complete suicide every single day due to domestic abuse’. Parallels can also be made to today’s actresses and Harvey Weinstein, Me Too, and the latest uncovering of the Epstein, Trump, Casablancas etc. case (where young girls were groomed for the sexual appetites of a roll call of powerful, rich men). Villanelle aims to bring hope, rewriting Elizabeth’s fate and the fate of all women facing such distressing thoughts.

Director: Sandeep Kumar Paul

Year: 2026

Science teacher Swarna and her partner Driti move to a suburban town for a fresh start. When a student leaks intimate photos of Swarna online, school authorities turn her private life into a disciplinary issue. Official Selection Busan International Film Festival 2026 - World premiere