For Cultural Purposes Only

Director: Sarah Wood

Year: 2014

It was only in the 20th century that we needed identity papers to cross national borders. In a century when we invented aviation, when we invented cinema, when we could move more and see more than at any other point in history why did we become so watchful and performative?

Director: Stuart St Paul

Year: 1998

In nineteenth century rural England, a German hussar serving with King George III's personal cavalry, Matthaus Singer, falls madly in love with Frances Groves, the only daughter of a West Country solicitor. Based on the short story 'The Melancholy Hussar' by Thomas Hardy

Director: Sara Nourizadeh

Year: 2026

Set in a mosque waiting room in 1980s South Wales, and inspired by the true story of writer-director Sara Nourizadeh's parents, a young couple whose relationship crossed boundaries of culture, faith and expectation. At a time when Iranian politics dominated UK headlines and shaped public attitudes, a Welsh woman and her Iranian fiancé prepare for an Islamic conversion ceremony – a requirement they must fulfil if they are to marry. What follows is a quietly charged and emotionally intimate portrait of two people trying to navigate a moment that is both deeply personal and subtly political. As they wait for the ceremony to begin, small details – a trembling hand, a whispered joke, a fleeting moment of doubt – reveal the emotional stakes beneath the surface. Their conversation dances between humour and tension, affection and uncertainty, reflecting the push and pull of family pressures, cultural misunderstandings, and their own hopes for the future. Authentic VHS archive footage of the real couple is interwoven within this scripted drama, grounding the film in lived experience and offering an unexpectedly tender glimpse into the decades that followed.