Our Introducing… slot is a space for discovery and collaboration at Screening Days. With it, we aim to bring you films beyond the release calendar that you may not yet be aware of, but which may connect you to new audiences in your communities.
We’re delighted to present the short films in this edition, selected by curator Umloda Ibrahim: I Carry It With Me Everywhere, directed by Turab Shah and Arwa Aburawa; Descent, directed by Syd Farrington; Neo Nahda, directed by May Ziadé; Muna, directed by Warda Mohamed; the variable, directed by Raheela Suleman; Messenger, directed by Alix Eve; and SABR, directed by Raheela Suleman. Scroll down for full details.
The Introducing… shorts will be available to watch singly or together on our online platform at Spring Screening Days, as well as screening in-person at BFI Southbank in London.
With many thanks to all the filmmakers and to Umloda Ibrahim
The films
I Carry It With Me Everywhere
Dir: Turab Shah, Arwa Aburawa | UK | 2022 | 19 mins
Informed by interviews with first-generation migrants living in the UK, this short film weaves together the lives of multiple characters as they confront inherited ideas of belonging.
From the severed connection to a motherland following the death of a parent, to the generational experience of displacement, or the feeling of nostalgia for a place and time forever out of reach, I Carry It With Me Everywhere explores how migration results in moments of rupture from which new understandings of home and belonging may emerge.
Booking enquiries to Arwa Aburawa.
linktr.ee/othercinemas | othercinemas.co.uk
Descent
Dir: Syd Farrington | UK | 2023 | 6 mins
The steel and glass jungle of contemporary London, scaffolded and climbing skywards at breakneck speed. With signs of supposed growth at every turn, a disorientating feeling of falling but never landing pervades. Despite the vast distance between the bottom and the top – the haves and have nots – a softness and a hope for reclamation of the cityscape glimmers at the edges of the 16mm frame. (Leonie Woodfin, IFFR)
Booking enquiries to Syd Farrington.
Neo Nahda
Dir: May Ziadé | UK | 2023 | 13 mins
Mona, a young woman in London, finds archived photographs of Arab women cross-dressing in the 1920s. Somewhere between her fantasies and reality, she starts a feverish journey of uncovering lost histories and her own identity.
Through a coming-of-age narrative, Neo Nahda explores the euphoric relationship those who are marginalised create with images and symbols, and how archive images can be a portal for the world of inner projections, creating meaning and grounding one’s identity.
Booking enquiries to Other People’s Films.
Muna
Dir: Warda Mohamed | UK | 2023 | 19 mins
Muna is determined to go on the school trip. She wants to escape the monotony of home, have fun with her friends and, of course, compile the greatest playlist of all time. But her parents are uncertain whether to let her go. Then the news reaches this UK-based family that Muna’s grandfather back in Somalia has died. Muna must navigate a confusing mourning period for a man she never really knew – all the while still desperately hoping to persuade her mum to change her mind about the trip. As events collide at the wake, Muna reflects on her own and her grandfather’s life and discovers that more connects the two of them than she ever realised.
Muna is part of an upcoming UK film tour from T A P E Collective, in cinemas from April.
Booking enquiries to T A P E Collective.
independenttalent.com/directors/warda-mohamed-writer-director
the variable
Dir: Raheela Suleman | UK | 2023 | 3 mins
the variable is an experimental short moving through Islamic existentialism, cyclical grief and construction of the ego.
Booking enquiries to Raheela Suleman.
Messenger
Dir: Alix Eve | UK | 2023 | 16 mins
Bubbly bicycle courier Bobbie traverses an unrelenting London and finds herself unleashing a strange, pent-up rage.
Booking enquiries to Alix Eve and producer Kamila Serkebaeva.
SABR
Dir: Raheela Suleman | UK | 2023 | 7 mins
A woman performs the sacred ritual of salah, revealing the profound journey of making time meaningful in the transient spaces of life.
Booking enquiries to Raheela Suleman.
