The Walnut of Knowledge
Synopsis
Based in a family garden outside of Tehran, we spend time with Jonah: watching his quest finding treasures beneath an old Walnut tree. The 80 year old Walnut tree has been a witness to many events from war to revolution, generations coming and going. Jonah hears these voices whilst he tries to understand his connection to this land. We hear mother and son’s reflections on life, history and belonging.
Official Selection London Short Film Festival 2026 - World premiere
Official Selection Ann Arbor Film Festival 2026 - Kodak Cinematic Vision Award Winner - International premiere
Official Selection International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2026 - European Premiere
Details
- Year
- 2026
- Type of project
- Shorts
- Running time
- 27 min
- Format
- 16mm, 8mm
- Director
-
Niyaz Saghari
- Producer
- Xenia Glen
- Executive Producer
- Luke Moody
- Editor
- Niyaz Saghari
- Director of Photography
- James Holcombe, Alberto Bona, Niyaz Saghari
- Production Designer
- Em Spoor
- Sound
- Rob Szeliga
- Composer
- Rob Szeliga
- Principal cast
- Jonah Sellers, Niyaz Saghari
- Production Manager
- Lily Baldwin
- Sound Recordist
- Antosh Wojcik
Production Status
Production Company
Supported by Made of Truth: BFI Doc Society Short Film Fund
Sleepwalker Studios Ltd
Xenia GlenRotherwood
Merrrifield
Wimborne
Dorset
BH21 7AJ
+44 (0)7999 459332
Page updates
This page was last updated on 28th May 2026. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.
See also
You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.
Anak Where Did We Stay?
Director: Sadia Pineda Hameed
Year: 2026
ANAK WHERE DID WE STAY? is a five-channel film by Sadia Pineda Hameed that brings together The Box’s home movie collection and the artist’s personal/family collection. Rasheed Araeen’s chakras, spouting waves, Beatlesmania, a basking shark, hula dance, an Enoch Powell protest, tidal islands and seafoam floating into the air—the archives converge across time to tell the story of the artist’s mother’s migration from one archipelago to another: the Philippines to the British Isles. The film becomes a gathering site for personal and collective experiences of journeys, resilience and belonging. Road trips unexpectedly reenact the archive, footage finds itself out of context, voices commentate the film as if rewatching a home movie together; mimesis, associations and autonomy are central to the retelling. As camcorders became more accessible from the 1970s onwards, home movies were an unconscious means to rebuild personal archives after colonial displacement, extraction and erasure. ANAK WHERE DID WE STAY?, named after the home movie from The Box’s archive 'Perranporth Where Did We Stay?', unfolds as a conversation between the artist and her mother, exploring the three interconnected journeys of migration, holidays and remembering. Produced as part of The Box’s Reimagining the Film Archive programme (BFI Screen Heritage Fund).
Moving Sound
Director: Sadia Pineda Hameed
Year: 2025
MOVING SOUND is a speculative work set across 1980s and near-future Wales, shot on super 16mm. In the film, sounds of present day anti-colonial and anti-capitalist strategies for mining strikes are transmitted from Soundcamp streamboxes to the past via an underground, time travelling broadcast. In the 1980s, workers build DIY receivers from Moving Sound portable audio devices, which they use to distribute the broadcast around sites of production and the everyday. First screened in the King Coal Experience (an immersive recreation of the Big Pit underground mine) amidst disused mining machinery, MOVING SOUND blurs fictional 16mm and archival 8mm footage of sonic action to explore how organising converges and enacts across geographies, temporality, fantasy and reality.
Zero Intention of Living Quietly
Director: Edward Lovelace
Year: 2026
Defined for much of his life by other people's perceptions of his visible difference, actor Adam Pearson finds a new sense of possibility when he meets Ellie, a teenage girl living with the same genetic condition. As their unlikely friendship inspires Adam to confront the rules he's built to protect himself, he returns to the big screen and discovers that the hero he's been searching for may be himself. Official Selection Telluride Film Festival 2026 Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026