Pig Story

Director: Stephen Bennett

Year: 2020

A shocking expose of Western governments' love affair with torture. In the 1950s Montreal Scottish born psychiatrist Dr Ewen Cameron experimented on his unwitting patients. His techniques included sensory deprivation, forced comas and LSD injections, covertly funded by the Canadian Government and the CIA. Since then his techniques have been used in Northern Ireland, Guantánamo and 27 other countries. 'Do No Harm' includes extraordinary first hand testimony from Guantanamo Bay survivors, Hooded Men from Northern Ireland, senior American psychologists and military personnel. This documentary shows how the collusion of doctors to aid and abet torture began in the 1950s and continues to this day. Interviewees include: former Chief Investigator for al Qaeda Mark Fallon; US Army General Stephen Xenakis; Guantanemo detainees Mohamedou Ould Slahi and Moazzam Begg; and Dr. Steven Reisner who blew the whistle on the collusion between psychologists and the CIA. In Belfast we film with Hooded Men Francis McGuigan, Liam Shannon and Brian Turley, as the European Court of Human Rights decides whether to rule in their favour and redraw the boundaries on what is legally defined as torture.

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.

Director: Clare Richards

Year: 2026

A split-screen dome projection is not something you see every day, yet its subject could hardly be more ordinary: public benches, located mainly in Plymouth, on the south coast of England. Whenever Tim Hart spots a new one, he takes a photograph, as he has done for 50 years. Just one photo, no more. “Cause it’s the same bench,” he explains amiably in Clare Richards’s documentary, which fills one half of the projection. On the other half, an orchestra performs Samuel D Loveless’ score, also titled BENCHES. His music follows the rhythm of Hart’s daily life as he walks from bench to bench, photographs them, sometimes sits down for a while, then moves on. And not just benches: Hart also photographs telephone booths, fairs, and more. Neurodivergent composer Loveless discovered the photographic archive of his autistic uncle Tim and was struck by the beauty of the everyday, patiently collected over decades. It gave Loveless an opportunity to celebrate a neurodivergent way of seeing the world, not by explaining it, but by sharing it.