Akala - Divided Kingdom

Director: Hannah Berryman

Year: 2024

A landmark feature documentary about astronaut Eileen Collins, the first woman to pilot and command the Space Shuttle. Eileen’s incredible journey starts with her smalltown beginnings, sees her smash through many glass ceilings, and culminates in four dramatic space shuttle missions, the last being possibly the most dangerous and most important of them all. At its heart the film is the moving human drama of one family, where a mother’s extraordinary career takes us straight to the big philosophical question of what is the level of acceptable risk in human endeavour? This film celebrates Commander Collins’ trailblazing NASA career which opened the way for women to become spacecraft pilots and commanders, and proved a perfect riposte to a previous generation of male astronauts who thought there was no place for women to lead the way in space. Official Selection DOC NYC 2024 - World premiere Official Selection CPH:DOX 2025 - European premiere

Director: Felipe Bustos Sierra

Year: 2026

An immigration ‘dawn raid’ in Glasgow’s most diverse community triggers a chain reaction through Kenmure Street, as neighbours rush to prevent the deportation of two residents.  Broadcast live and going viral on social media, the eight-hour stand-off lets the world watch as a police force struggles to contain a peaceful crowd, then exacerbates an explosive situation.  Centuries of unhappy endings and systemic violence have not prepared the crowd for their peaceful efforts to pay off, and yet it all ends on one of the most joyful notes you’ll get to see.

Director: Beryl Richards

Year: 2026

Following the director, Beryl Richards's adopted son, Nathan/Joe’s, journey from a one-year-old to adulthood, told from the viewpoints of parent and child. Joe wants to make this film so people ‘get’ him, know what it means to be neurodivergent, and what he has been able to achieve despite many challenges. Beryl shows the evolution of a family created from scratch that’s had to keep adapting. The challenge and recalibration of being a parent and a lifetime carer. The core of the story is told through 28 years of home movie footage- sparky, warm and funny as Nathan/Joe develops into the man he is today. Alongside, a growing boy is shown, much misunderstood and almost destroyed by the prejudice and ignorance surrounding neurodivergence. The family therapy received along the way offers some support, but also reveals how the family dynamic was influenced by Beryl’s own experience of childhood neglect. Beryl first saw 6-month-old Nathan on a VHS tape. She and husband Dave responded with a video welcoming him to their home. For the past 28 years Beryl has recorded “our feelings, our joy and our pain" so that Nathan could better understand his story later in life.