Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

Spring 1991: queer life is under renewed attack in Britain, and filmmaker Derek Jarman is adapting Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II into a radical protest film. Drawing on extraordinary never-before-seen footage shot by Seamus McGarvey on Jarman’s set, QUEER EDWARD 11 is about the refusal to separate art from life, politics from pleasure. Official Selection Venice Film Festival 2026 - World premiere Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026

Synopsis

A young Lebanese filmmaker in Paris watches Lebanon's war unfold on her phone from bed. In a state of paralysis, barely able to get out of bed, she calls her father everyday and begins recording her digital life. Using screen recordings, family voices, and silences, the film intimately portrays a generation witnessing their homeland's destruction remotely. Official Selection Venice International Film Festival 2026 - World premiere

Synopsis

At dawn in Western Hungary, 14-year-old Hunor and his family use greyhounds to clear wildlife from ZalaZONE, a cutting-edge autonomous vehicle test track. Their traditional methods serve an increasingly militarized future. Official Selection Venice International Film Festival 2026 - World premiere

Synopsis

Grace has been filming her family since she was a child. Birthdays, Christmases, car journeys, ordinary Tuesday afternoons. Her father Richard was usually somewhere in the frame - elusive, warm, difficult to get close to, and addicted to OxyContin. They had a complicated relationship. Long stretches of not speaking, and tentative attempts to find their way back to each other. Grace often found a way back in with her camera. In 2013 she went home to film Richard and his best friend - his dog, Charlie. She thought she was making a black comedy. She ended up unexpectedly filming a funeral. And then, before she could finish the film she'd started, her father died too. For years the footage sat untouched. Too much to look at and make sense of. DEPENDENCE is what happened when Grace finally went back in. Sifting through 30 years of home movies, she sets out to do something both simple and impossible: to finally understand her father. What she finds is not only a story about addiction, but a portrait of a whole family. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026 - European premiere - Winner - Audience Award for Best British Discovery

Synopsis

The extraordinary story of Richard “Ric” O’Barry, once the world’s highest-paid dolphin trainer, now their most passionate defender, risking his life and liberty to free these remarkable creatures from captivity. In the 1960s, Ric was America’s leading dolphin trainer at the Miami Seaquarium and the celebrated trainer behind the hit TV series 'Flipper', whose smiling stars enchanted a generation. Everything changed after the apparent suicide of one of the show’s dolphins, Kathie - a moment that shattered his beliefs and set him on a radical path from insider to activist. For over 50 years, Ric has led a global campaign against dolphin captivity. As founder of Dolphin Project, he has risked arrest, injury, and personal loss to rescue dolphins and expose the industry’s darkest secrets. Both celebrated and criticised, he remains steadfast that every captive dolphin can either be retired to a sanctuary or returned to the wild. Told through intimate family access, joyous underwater imagery, and covert filming, Ric’s mission has transformed a non-issue into a global movement. Now 85, he must ask: after a lifetime spent freeing others, can he finally set himself free?

Synopsis

In 1976, there was a call to boycott the Shiraz Arts Festival. Some well-known international artists joined immediately, others reluctantly. “The giants aren’t coming this year,” wrote the Iranian newspaper Kayhan. Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2026 - World premiere Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026

Synopsis

JOY OF JOYS is a short documentary about the recording sessions for War Child Records' HELP(2) at Abbey Road Studios, directed by Jonathan Glazer and devised by Mica Levi and Glazer. Children in London film themselves and the musicians, including Olivia Rodrigo, Arctic Monkeys, Damon Albarn, Cameron Winter, Fontaines DC and Pulp. While children in Gaza Ukraine, Sudan and Yemen film themselves and their surroundings. The documentary interweaves these layers across continents and backgrounds to show a universal innocence and the joy of childhood itself. Glazer and Levi describe the film as being “by children, for children”. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026

Synopsis

Bel was a Kenyan-Scottish woman who dreamt of singing to the whole world. A gifted musician, singer, and writer, she performed under the stage name Heir of the Cursed and in 2021 was on the absolute cusp of wider fame. But just as the world was finally about to discover her name, Bel took her own life, leaving behind poignant video diaries and a mobile phone full of amazing, unreleased songs. She was a brilliant artist fighting to be heard, yet she remains largely unknown today. Her untimely death and a small but beautiful body of work form her legacy now. Much like the legendary musician Nick Drake who also died young, the power and mystery of Bel’s music lies within the heavy pathos of her life's sudden end. Whatever deep internal struggles led to her tragic death were also at the very heart of what powered her mesmerising art. This documentary tells the story of an artist on the edge of stardom, and her sister Leah’s fierce determination to fulfil Bel's dream: releasing her final record and sharing her with the world. Official Selection Edinburgh International Film Festival 2026 - Closing Night Film - World premiere

Synopsis

The life of Harvey Kurtzman and his creation of MAD Magazine is one of the great untold stories in American and global cultural history. THE MAD WORLD OF HARVEY KURTZMAN is a deep dive into the world of comic books, pop culture and satire. Official Selection Edinburgh International Film Festival 2026 - World premiere Official Selection DOC NYC 2026 - International premiere

Synopsis

Extremism is one of the most pressing issues of our time, yet the public's understanding of what causes it and so too how it can be prevented is often far, far away from many of the debates within academic circles. With examples ranging from Sudan, Israel, the US and the UK, to activists from Amnesty International, a pseudonymous journalist and an anonymous expert sits down to discuss 6 metaphorical vignettes from a range of formers, scholars and activists to explore what we've been getting wrong about extremism.

Synopsis

In 1988, Afghanistan sent its only astronaut into space, a journey that proved home can be farther than the stars. Official Selection, Locarno Film Festival 2026 - World premiere Locarno Film Festival 2026 - Winner - International Competition Leopard of Tomorrow Official Selection Dokufest 2026 Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2026

Synopsis

Rob Beaton has been weaving tartan and tweed in the Scottish Borders since he was 14. Now 84, he is Scotland's oldest and longest-serving mill worker, operating 100-year-old traditional shuttle looms. With no apprentice to carry on his craft, the mill where he has worked for over four decades may soon be forced to close. But elsewhere in Scotland, a different story is unfolding. At another mill in Highland Perthshire, a young apprentice is learning the trade, and the ancient rhythms of the looms are being passed to a new generation. Once, Scotland's textile industry employed nearly 75% of the population. Today, that figure stands at just 0.2%. Against the backdrop of that decline, the stories of these two mills paint a portrait of an industry at a crossroads. Through his film, Callum McCulloch-Nowlan celebrates the workers, machines, and spaces of Scotland's weaving tradition, while exploring the urgency of preserving a disappearing craft.