Strangeways

Director: Adam Lieber

Year: 2021

The world began with the Big Bang, we are told the walls of Jericho were decimated by trumpets, to music being used as torture or control, to persuade or even calm, to the soundtracks to war and music for revolutions. What is music and sound's relationship to control and power? We have channeled this question through candid conversations with neural networks, by training machines on a collected sonic and visual history of noise, metal and rock music, as well as music that is sacred and spiritual. The project explores ideas around music as a weapon, as a cultural shifter, manipulator, unifier and ultimately, as a force. The result is a non-stop fictional band performing endlessly, 24 hours a day. As the music infinitely changes, unique combinations of sound and visual will never be repeated. We have collaborated with AI music pioneers, Dadabots, combining machine learning, audio-responsive assets & procedural visuals inside VRChat to create a fully immersive real-time interactive environment. We are sonically at the mercy of the machine, as one never knows what will be performed on arrival.

Director: Hope Pearl Strickland

Year: 2026

St, Mary’s Parish, Jamaica, April 1760, in a cave near what is now known as Tacky Falls, Tacky’s Rebellion is unfolding as the most significant revolt of the eighteenth-century in the Caribbean, three decades before the Haitian Revolution. AN UNIMAGINABLE LEAP traverses loosely associated events and places: 16mm footage of daily life in contemporary Jamaica; caves as portals; and a celebration of Jamaican Independence Day at a cricket club in Manchester. Moments of respite and celebration are negotiated alongside the threat of ecological degradation and bauxite mining, in order to consider the relationship between revolutionary time, the climate emergency and cinematic form. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026

Director: Asa Gartland

Year: 2026

The Public have just played the best gig of their lives, and for the first time, someone in a suit is interested. It feels like the moment they have been waiting for, but celebrations quickly descend into chaos. Andy, the band's quiet and devoted guitarist, watches as his dream begins to dissolve around him. A chain reaction is set in motion as secrets are exposed, loyalties shift, and buried tensions explode to the surface. As the night spirals further out of control, the frontman, Ted, is pulled toward a future that could take him away for good. Andy becomes desperate to save Ted from himself and hold everything together, even as it becomes clear that some things will never be the same.