Project Detail

An Unimaginable Leap

Name: An Unimaginable Leap
Director: Hope Pearl Strickland
Genre: Black, Climate / Environment, Experimental
Released: 2026
Duration: 17 min 48 sec

A young black man is shown running across an outdoor basketball court

still, An unimaginable leap (2026)

Synopsis

St, Mary’s Parish, Jamaica, April 1760, in a cave near what is now known as Tacky Falls, Tacky’s Rebellion is unfolding as the most significant revolt of the eighteenth-century in the Caribbean, three decades before the Haitian Revolution.

AN UNIMAGINABLE LEAP traverses loosely associated events and places: 16mm footage of daily life in contemporary Jamaica; caves as portals; and a celebration of Jamaican Independence Day at a cricket club in Manchester. Moments of respite and celebration are negotiated alongside the threat of ecological degradation and bauxite mining, in order to consider the relationship between revolutionary time, the climate emergency and cinematic form.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026

Details

Year: 2026
Type of project: Shorts
Running time: 17 min 48 sec
Format: 16mm; Hi8
Director: Hope Pearl Strickland
Producer: Hope Pearl Strickland, Nuria Lopez de la Oliva Mena
Editor: Hope Pearl Strickland, Jennifer Lauren Martin
Director of Photography: Hope Pearl Strickland
Sound: Hope Pearl Strickland, Felix Taylor
Composer: Felix Taylor
Principal cast: James Jordan Johnson
Creative Consultancy: Jennifer Lauren Martin
Colour Grade: Jason R. Moffat

Genre

Black Climate / Environment Experimental

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

Hope Strickland

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Bodies of water are intervened upon, moved, disrupted and exploited. Labouring bodies experience similar pressures from the same forces of power and extraction. Distant communities – Northern England and Jamaica – share similar histories of manipulation and oppression whose record is kept in the living memory of its waterways. But water, like people, can find a way to exert its own will. Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2025 - World premiere

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