British Council Logo UK Films Database
Project Detail

Half Memory

A boardwalk in San Francisco

Synopsis

Using Toni Morrison’s ‘The Site of Memory’ as a starting point for interrogation, HALF MEMORY is a languid meditation on memory, conurbations, isolation, and the histories we live among. Oscillating between years, cities, and unfolding images, the film is an examination of the present as an artefact of the past. Shot on Super8 and filmed between the US, France and the UK over a period of years.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2025

Details

Year
2024
Type of project
Shorts
Running time
30 min
Director
Ufuoma Essi
Producer
Ufuoma Essi
Editor
Ufuoma Essi
Director of Photography
Ufuoma Essi
Sound
Shamica Ruddock
Composer
Shamica Ruddock
Other Lead Creative(s)
Colourist - Thierry Phung

Genre

Experimental

Categories

Artist Project and Video / Experimental

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

Supported by Council England, Somerset House Studios and Jerwood, with additional support from The Elephant Trust

Ufuoma Essi

Sales Company

Ufuoma Essi

Page updates

This page was last updated on 30th September 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

Suggest amendments

See also

You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.

Pastoral Malaise Pastoral Malaise

Director: Ufuoma Essi

Year: 2022

A meditative reflection on the absences found in rural pastoral environments, which are often framed by a false romanticism and picturesque conventions, constructed as tourist sites within rural landscapes across Britain.

Experimental
Is My Living in Vain Is My Living in Vain

Director: Ufuoma Essi

Year: 2023

A meditation on the continuing history and emancipatory potential of the Black church as a space of diasporic belonging, affirmation and community organising. The film examines churches as spaces of 'infrapolitics' by exploring the sonic, political, spiritual and existential connections between specific communities. Official Selection Black Star Film Festival 2023 Official Selection Hot Docs Festival 2023 Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2024

Experimental Music Woman Director Black Dance
Elegy for the Lost Elegy for the Lost

Director: William Hong-xiao Wei

Year: 2025

Through the psychoanalytic and introspective voiceover of a young post-pandemic Chinese migrant in Europe, the film interweaves her private memories of intimacy with public narratives of resistance. As her reflections unfold, she and her community navigate secrecy, repression, survival, looming precarity, and displacement, all while confronting the personal cost of existing in a world that demands their silence.

Asian Docufiction Experimental LGBTQIA+ Scottish