Some pursuits take us across borders; others take us in search of histories, answers or a sense of purpose. Through documentary, narrative, animation and experimental film, these shorts explore the many forms devotion can take and the journeys it sets in motion.
From a mother seeking refuge and a safer future for her children and a family rooting a new generation in the wisdom of the land, to a boy faced with an impossible choice of the fate of his family's camel, these films follow people, young and grown, searching for a way forward while remaining connected to what came before.
Through explorations of the spiritual and ancestral, the search for sanctuary and our relationships with animals and the living world, they return to the simple but radical insistence that some things are worth tending, remembering, protecting and holding onto. Looking both backwards and ahead, they ask what guides us, what we carry forward and what might be revealed when we keep going.
Films included:
Hope Is Lost
Eno Enefiok | UK, North Macedonia | 2025 | English | 16m
Scottish Premiere
Ten days before the millennium, Hope, a single mother, arrives in London with her two infants, clutching only the clothes on their backs. Escaping a haunted past, she seeks refuge in a city gripped by Y2K paranoia. A charismatic stranger offers sanctuary, but as Hope navigates an uncertain future in unfamiliar streets, she uncovers his chilling motives.
An Afternoon with a Gnawa
Meena Nanji | Morocco | US, 2026 | Moroccan Arabic with English subtitles | 12m
UK Premiere
The Gnawa inhabit ordinary and non-ordinary worlds, their music and song creating passageways between the two. This experimental non-fiction short offers a brief entry point into these worlds through an encounter with Mustafa, a Gnawa musician who lives in Rabat.
The Travails of Ajadi
Adeoye Adetunji | Nigeria | 2026 | Yoruba & English with English subtitles | 11m
UK Premiere
After surviving a violent storm at sea, a frustrated fisherman confronts a divine voice to demand answers for his life of hardship, only to discover that his suffering was a divine preparation for his true purpose.
FarEye
Hayden Mclean | UK | 2026 | English & Jamaican Patois with English subtitles | 13m
Scottish Premiere
Fleeing the chaos of home, a young Jamaican boy finds refuge within a community guided by music, spirit and faith, awakening something deep within that will change the course of his life forever.
Khufu
Mahmoud Assi | Egypt, France, Sweden, Canada | 2026 | Egyptian Arabic with English subtitles | 17m
UK Premiere
After the family’s breadwinning camel, Khufu, collapses before the pyramids, young Sayed is torn between selling his only source of income for meat or abandoning him by the “wall of carcasses”. However, a mysterious dawn intervention by his mother leads them into an unexpected burial ritual.
The Boys and the Bees
Arielle Knight | US | 2026 | English | 16m
Scottish Premiere
A year in the life of a Black family on a small farm in rural Georgia. Through a patient, vérité lens, the film moves at the pace of two young boys as they wander fields, tend hives and grow in their relationship with the land around them. Their parents, Eliza and Nehemiah Ray, set out to reimagine Black family life, rooting it in the wisdom of the natural world.