Learned by Heart

Director: Sheida Kiran

Year: 2026

In a remote village in southeast Turkey, 35-year-old Meryem begins the annual olive harvest. For generations, the groves have sustained the village women's livelihoods, but this year, the harvest takes place under a shadow of fear. Following a devastating earthquake that destroyed Meryem’s home, 60% of the village’s olive lands have been seized by the government to build a new satellite city. As the concrete edge presses steadily toward their remaining fields, this harvest may be their last. Once a stay-at-home mother, Meryem picks up a camera to document the slow unraveling of her community. Women, previously confined to the home, step into public life - leading protests, sit-ins, and a landmark lawsuit alongside thousands of indigenous landowners, to protect the land they have tended for centuries. Interweaving Meryem’s video diaries with observational footage, the film moves between intimate scenes of the family harvest and the female-led resistance. As the movement unfolds, the once-perfect harvest is gradually disrupted by destruction. HERE TO STAY tells the story of a people’s fight for justice, tracing how tragedy transforms Meryem from mother to resistance leader, as she seeks to protect the land she calls home.

Director: Devika Shallivan

Year: 2026

Milan, 2026 – Right Place Right Time follows the untold human stories behind the Winter Olympics, capturing fleeting moments of triumph, struggle, and serendipity. Through the eyes of athletes, spectators, and creators, the film explores how being in the right place at the right time can transform ordinary moments into extraordinary experiences, revealing the cultural, emotional, and personal dimensions of one of the world’s largest sporting events.

Director: Deepa Mann-Kler

Year: 2026

A 20-minute single-player immersive VR experience that places users inside the body of Zoraan, a British-born Sikh woman navigating menopause amidst climate collapse and the ruins of colonial medicine. You breathe with her. You scream with her. You dance your way out of sedation. Blending real-time visuals, bio-haptic feedback and diasporic sound, this work reframes menopause not as decline but as volatile power; closing ‘The Baby Factory’ to ignite a cultural revolution. Using gesture, voice and biometric feedback, audiences become co-conspirators in a volatile act of embodied rebellion. This is not a metaphor. This is an insurgency. Official Selection SXSW 2026 - XR Competition - World premiere