Chaplin | Spirit of The Tramp

Director: Angela Clarke

Year: 2026

Imagine hearing your own body: eyes scratching, blood rushing, bones creaking, your heartbeat pounding endlessly. For most, it’s unthinkable. For Dave, it’s daily life. Since 2000, he has lived with Superior Semicircular Canal Dehiscence Syndrome (SCDS), a rare disorder that turns his body into an echo chamber. This immersive short documentary draws viewers into Dave’s sonic reality through raw narration, stark black-and-white imagery, and an unsettling soundscape. As he recounts years of misdiagnosis and disbelief, the film explores resilience and isolation, ultimately asking why we doubt invisible pain and how empathy begins by truly listening to what we cannot see.

Director: Arwa Aburawa, Turab Shah

Year: 2026

A personal meditation on the intimate ways our lives are shaped by ongoing colonial histories, how we make sense of this knowing and finding joy. Official Selection CPH:DOX 2026 Centered around the filmmakers’ local park, this film is a celebration of London and the resilience of migrant communities that have shaped the city from its beginnings. It’s about the British Empire Exhibition of 1924-25 and a line which stretches all the way from then to today. It’s about Palestine, which sits along this colonial continuum, and a park full of dancing, BBQs, birthday parties and joy. Through a hybrid form that combines documentary, archival footage, and direct animation this film meditates on the colonial remnants lodged in our lives and asks what it means to celebrate, play, and belong amid the rubble of empire. Official Selection CPH:DOX 2026

Director: Alison Rooper

Year: 2026

Filmed over seven years, this film humanises the life of a trans family as they navigate a culture war and rising political hostility towards trans rights. The film recounts the extraordinary story of a Yorkshire based businesswoman/amateur ballet dancer and her family as she battles to complete her transition while her rights to live in her new gender are increasingly called into question. It is a story of love and hope as Sophie and partner Sandi celebrate their achievements, overcome bureaucratic hurdles, have their fairytale wedding, and conceive a child. It’s a story of resilience as the family learns to deal with an outpouring of social media hatred. We share Sophie’s triumph as she gets the surgery that she’s waited years for and her alarm at a rise in transphobic hate crimes and a rollback of rights she thought were hers.