Dream Factory

Director: Alex Matraxia

Year: 2025

One night in the basement of a drag bar, rehearsals are underway for the evening's show; queens Kim and Ava face the pressures of change when their manager replaces their colleague for a younger queen. Meanwhile upstairs in the bar, young couple Jack and Nora try to salvage their relationship despite their secrets; and not too far away, washed-up actor Robert Lamore catches up with his agent in the hopes of a comeback. As the night ensues, each story comes together through the shared pressures of performance, pride, and second chances. Official Selection, Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival 2026 Official Selection, Portobello Film Festival, 2026 Official Selection, British Shorts, Berlin 2026 Official Selection, HollyShorts London 2025 Official Selection, FilmOut, San Diego 2025

Director: Helga Dorothea Fannon

Year: 2025

"Driven by a single photograph that seemed to hold pieces of myself and my sister, I began interviewing my father to uncover the life of his mother, Katherine May Fannon, and her roots in Liverpool. The image stirred something deep - I realised how much I wanted to know her, to feel connected across generations. Though my father lives in Sweden, we bridged the distance over Zoom, with only faded photos he shared as windows into her world. Through these stories, I hoped not only to understand her but to feel closer to him as well." This film was created during Stitch & Remix, a 3-day workshop by Renaissance Studios in collaboration with London's Screen Archives as part of the Undocumented project by London's Screen Archives and The New Black Film Collective. Seeking to address the lack of Black stories in London's moving image archives. This project, and workshops such as Stitch & Remix, are made possible through the support of the BFI, awarding National Lottery funding. Official Selection, Wysiwyg 2026

Director: Tatiana Collet Apraxine

Year: 2028

You awaken on a fog-shrouded shoreline and meet Echo, a strange child with a hole in their stomach. Together you cross a lantern festival where the veil between worlds is thinnest, sail into an ocean that opens beneath you, and descend through a portal into the Underworld. The Underworld moves through different facets of grief: a rave where silhouettes dance in slow motion, indifferent to Echo's attempts to reach them; a frozen sea where giant statues crack open to release a buried memory of a lost mother; a shadow theatre where an anger monster is unleashed, reducing everything to embers. From the embers, a boat carries you into a vast darkness, where Mother appears, and they are finally reunited. You sail together to the Tree of Life, a bioluminescent, cosmic jungle. Echo begs her to return to the World of the Living, but ancestors appear and surround you. She cannot come back - the journey was never about bringing her back. Echo, revealed to be your own child self, dissolves around you as the hole fills with light.