The Campaigner

Director: Rebecca Brand

Year: 2016

A ‘pop-u-mentary’ following award-winning performance artist Bryony Kimmings and her 10-year old niece Taylor as they try to combat the hyper-sexualised and commercialised world of pop by creating their very own alternative popstar role model for Tweens (7 – 12 year old girls). They launch their creation into the world and measure her impact against a series of ‘Fame Aims’, including one million hits on YouTube and national radio play for one of her songs. Bryony and Taylor’s adventure sees them perform to thousands of children, garner national media attention, and takes them to the other side of the world and back. But the impact it has closer to home is perhaps the most powerful of all. This feature-length documentary is an upbeat and inspirational film for anyone who cares about the impact of the media we consume.

Director: Anna Maguire, Kyle Greenberg

Year: 2026

What if you went on a holiday and the apocalypse happened? GALICIA! is a found-footage, hybrid-documentary following a couple through home video footage as they visit their friends at a winery in rural Spain and inadvertently capture the end of days. We live in a time where the sense of our impending mutually assured destruction is more real than it’s ever been. GALICIA! Takes the form of a holiday video - a document of a couple before - and after the great cataclysm. The film starts as something that feels unedited - an accidental video diary of an ordinary couple that feels somewhat ghostly as much as it is also pedestrian. As the film evolves and degrades, we are led to question the fragility of humanity, as well as its power to endure.

Director: Jake J Smith

Year: 2026

For the first time in 30 years, a film crew gains rare access to Pennsylvania’s maximum-security women’s prisons. Inside, The Lady Lifers – a band led by former soul singer Naomi Blount – turn grief into music and defiance. Though Naomi never took a life, she is serving life without parole. To have any hope of freedom, she must express guilt she does not feel – a cruel paradox of the justice system. As her music echoes beyond the prison walls and reaches the public, lawmakers and activists, the question remains: Will her voice be enough to finally set her free - and to free those she left behind? Official Selection Durban International Film Festival 2026