Commissioned artwork by Funmi Lijadu
Glasgow Film Festival March 5 – 7
The strand Welcome To aimed to challenge the belief that Black people are not/can not be present in Scotland - temporally, metaphorically or ancestrally. This film program’s focus is one part of an attempt to collate some of the many contributions made by Black people in Scotland, as well as bringing to the forefront the presences of those who have and do walk the land.
Welcome To: A Focus on Black Women Filmmakers
The under acknowledged work of Black British Female directors and producers continues to inform the limited ways in which the landscape of film is curated. This part of the strand is an offering of these works that sits within a Scottish context, whether through origin, setting and/or spatial memory.
Welcome To: Lineages of the Landscape
A series of documentaries that serve as an archive of Scottish Black history, with themes of movement, journeys and (im)permanence that flow throughout.
As part of the programme, Tomiwa and Natasha commissioned Funmi Lijadu, Ngqabutho Mpofu AKA ButhoTheWarrior DJ, Jess Brough and Francis Dosoo, to make new work inspired by the programme.
A co-curation with Tomiwa Folorunso.
Glasgow Short Film Festival March 24 - 26
Following on from the first iteration of the program in 2020, Black Spatial Imaginaries Pt.2 continues the conversation of space as it relates to the Black experience and asks - who is allowed to inhabit the land, move freely, tell stories, speak truths, survive, thrive?
We are always (re)tracing the steps of those who have walked before us, many forgotten, lost in history. As we inevitably turn into memories ourselves, we are tasked with becoming the archivists of the past, present and future - storytellers within our own right.
BSI itself inhabits the merge of fact and fiction often found within storytelling methods, as mapped through the geography of each film. We journey to the English countryside, find the secret routes of the Underground Railroad in the US, get a glimpse into the colonial history of Brazil, while hearing from those who are part of its Black Queer community. We see evidence of Edinburgh’s Black history that often bubbles just under the surface of Scottish history, and observe Senagelese farming practices. The citizens of these spaces are (dis)located through dance, labour, poetics, whispers, silence, glares, myth and mystery. We are reminded of the non-homogeneity of the Black experience, yet there is a solace that can be found in recognising that our stories of desire, kinship, lostness, displacement, can be traced across and through lands.
The programme opened with a live set from Glasgow based DJ Plantainchipps.
Glasgow Short Film Festival
10 Mar 2020
View original: BLACK SPATIAL IMAGINARIES
Read about the programme
Abandon Normal Devices June 4th-11th
Beyond Bodies, Towards Waters
We float, in search of answers or,
m e m o r i e s
In search of a sanctuary on or below wet surfaces.
Towards, or instead of, a body of water
We are all fluid, geographical bodies
Meeting and passing through estuaries
Meeting and passing through particles
Meeting and passing
Water’s archive can be traced across its various bodies; oceans, rivers, ports, rainfall. Water is our beginning, and a mark of transition across and through passages. But what does it mean to become a body of water? It encourages a fluid sense of being – movement and memories in constant flux. Water is always speaking to us – this programme of films inspires us to pick up a shell and listen closely to its rhythmic stories.