Bel

Director: Lou Lockwood

Year: 2026

At the age of five, Beldina and her family moved from Kisumu, Kenya to a small town in rural Dumfriesshire, Scotland. As her sister Leah explains “One flight from Nairobi, and Bel became a black person, before she was just a person”. In the 1990s as the only black family in their community, Bel grew up being “othered and marginalised, and questioning her worth”. The effects of this racism had an immeasurable impact on Bel’s mental health and her desire to be seen and heard. In telling Bel’s story, this film exposes the experience of being Black and Scottish. Bel expressed her feelings and thoughts in her obsessive writings and songwriting. This film explores how, despite her incredible gifts, it was still almost impossible for a Black woman to break through. In the past, a diary might form the basis for a biography, however Bel left a phone full of self-shot films and heart-stopping performances. This compelling archive, plus photographs, diaries and notebooks, brings Bel to life - combined with interviews with those who knew Bel best to create an insightful picture of a darkly humoured, supremely talented, troubled but joyous Kenyan-Scottish black woman determined to be heard.

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: Jeanie Finlay

Year: 2026

Fisherman Stan Rennie and his family have always fished the waters of North East England for centuries. This line to history stretched uninterrupted, until a devastating tidemark of poisoned crabs appeared one Autumn morning like a biblical plague, heralding an unprecedented poisoning of the river and the sea Unless Stan - and others like him - can find answers, he may be the last of his kind. Can an unlikely alliance between a raggle-taggle group of salty fishers, elderly seal conservationist Sue and her equally elderly dog Mandy, with marine biologists be the key to survival? A richly layered story about the value of home and what happens when it is undermined by corruption, betrayal, and environmental collapse. Told with wit, pathos and underdog tenacity by the coastal community whose own Brexit votes may have been the catalyst for disaster.