Everything You Wanted to Know About Sudden Birth* (*but were afraid to ask)

Director: Scott Calonico

Year: 2015

Leith’s Cables Wynd housing estate, known locally as the “Banana Flats”, became notorious as the crime-ridden centre of Europe’s heroin epidemic in the 1980s. The film follows a photographer and former resident who embarks on a quest to document the triumphs and tragedies that exist inside the estate’s 204 flats.

Director: Scott Calonico

Year: 2014

What do you need for nuclear war? First of all, a good script.

Director: Siobhan Silén

Year: 2027

An animated VR short inspired by autistic musician Jen Msumba, who defies a system designed to erase her through synaesthetic music-making. It explores the universal need to be accepted for who we are. Participants journey through Jen’s life, from childhood, when the world feels confusing and “wonky”. Music is her safety and compass. While others read notes on a page, Jen sees visual maps that help her express emotions and navigate uncertainty. As a teenager, Jen’s mother becomes ill and her anxiety overwhelms her. Years of psychiatric institutions and medication leave her sedated, unable to play instruments. Her family sends her to the Judge Rotenberg Center, whose practices will later be described by the United Nations as torture. Over seven years of confinement and painful electric shocks, Jen is taught to believe she is “wrong”. Secretly composing music in her head becomes her refuge. Realising the centre will not support her independence, Jen writes to a judge and wins her freedom. She rediscovers music and invites us into her musical map, where participants touch and transform notes through movement, shifting melodies from classical to punk rock. We end with Jen performing on stage.