Smoke Seekers

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: Hannan Jones

Year: 2025

In the subterranean archive of the National Roman Legion Museum, where artefacts and imperial debris trace Britain’s imperial past, the possible first depiction of a Welshmen or “barbarian” becomes a catalyst to unsettle imperial narratives and surface long-suppressed voices.

Director: Emily Ng

Year: 2025

A trapped couple feeling the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic and the situations that occur behind closed doors truly testing their relationship.