A event held at Arnolfini on Wednesday 11th June. The event starts at 18:00.
The Royal Anthropological Institute is thrilled to launch the 19th RAI FILM Festival, offering a vibrant display of creativity, filmmaking craft, and rich anthropological perspectives through groundbreaking documentaries from around the world. The 2025 edition will take place from 11 to 15 June at the Arnolfini and the Watershed, in Bristol, and will be followed by an online programme available worldwide from 16 June to 16 July.
Organised since 1985, the festival celebrates its 40th anniversary under the theme Looking Back, Looking Forward, inviting audiences to reflect on memory, history, and the futures we imagine through film. How are contemporary filmmakers reworking narratives, innovating cinematic language, and revisiting archives to respond to the complexities of the present?
This landmark edition brings to Bristol over 90 films from 36 countries, spanning observational documentaries, essay films, experimental works, and indigenous media — accompanied by filmmaker Q&As, panel discussions, in a unique mix of cinema and scholarship.
The Arnolfini hosts RAI FILM Festival opening night with this year’s President’s Award winner God Is a Woman (2023), screening as a UK premiere following its acclaimed debut at the Venice Film Festival. This poignant, multi-layered documentary follows the journey of the indigenous Kuna community in Panama as they recover a lost 1970s film made about them — and unfolds into a powerful meditation on cultural memory and the right of indigenous peoples to reclaim their image. The screening will be followed by an in-person Q&A with director Andrés Peyrot and producer Duiren Wagua.
Passes are now on sale and all package options are described here. Individual tickets are available for purchase directly at the Arnolfini and Watershed box offices.
Browse the full programme at the RAI FILM Festival website. [available on 22 May]
THE FILM
Wednesday, 11 June, 6pm
God Is a Woman | Dieu est une femme
Dir. Andrés Peyrot, 2023, Panama/Switzerland/France, 86min.
UK premiere
Screening followed by a Q&A with the director Andrés Peyrot and the producer Duiren Wagua
In 1975, French Oscar-winning director Pierre-Dominique Gaisseau travels to Panama to film the Kuna community, one of South America’s largest indigenous peoples. Accompanied by his wife and their little girl Akiko, Gaisseau lived with the Kunas for a year, gaining their trust and filming their most intimate ceremonies. The project eventually runs out of funds, and a bank confiscates the reels. Fifty years later, the Kunas are still waiting to discover “their” film, now a legend passed down from the elders to the new generation. One day, a hidden copy is found in Paris… but gaining access to the dusty film reels is not easy. While uncovering this fascinating story with humility and warmth, the film also turns abstract questions about the right to own one’s image and narrative into a relevant and existential necessity. A cautionary tale about how and why documentaries are made and for whom, and a testament to the power of what it means to see oneself on the big screen. God Is a Woman is Peyrot’s feature documentary debut, and premiered at the Venice Film Festival, having toured since then prestigious international film festivals such as Toronto, Stockholm, and CPH:DOX, among others.
https://raifilm.org.uk/festivals/2025/
Entry requirements: no age restrictions
Organised since 1985, the festival celebrates its 40th anniversary under the theme Looking Back, Looking Forward, inviting audiences to reflect on memory, history, and the futures we imagine through film. How are contemporary filmmakers reworking narratives, innovating cinematic language, and revisiting archives to respond to the complexities of the present?
This landmark edition brings to Bristol over 90 films from 36 countries, spanning observational documentaries, essay films, experimental works, and indigenous media — accompanied by filmmaker Q&As, panel discussions, in a unique mix of cinema and scholarship.
The Arnolfini hosts RAI FILM Festival opening night with this year’s President’s Award winner God Is a Woman (2023), screening as a UK premiere following its acclaimed debut at the Venice Film Festival. This poignant, multi-layered documentary follows the journey of the indigenous Kuna community in Panama as they recover a lost 1970s film made about them — and unfolds into a powerful meditation on cultural memory and the right of indigenous peoples to reclaim their image. The screening will be followed by an in-person Q&A with director Andrés Peyrot and producer Duiren Wagua.
Passes are now on sale and all package options are described here. Individual tickets are available for purchase directly at the Arnolfini and Watershed box offices.
Browse the full programme at the RAI FILM Festival website. [available on 22 May]
THE FILM
Wednesday, 11 June, 6pm
God Is a Woman | Dieu est une femme
Dir. Andrés Peyrot, 2023, Panama/Switzerland/France, 86min.
UK premiere
Screening followed by a Q&A with the director Andrés Peyrot and the producer Duiren Wagua
In 1975, French Oscar-winning director Pierre-Dominique Gaisseau travels to Panama to film the Kuna community, one of South America’s largest indigenous peoples. Accompanied by his wife and their little girl Akiko, Gaisseau lived with the Kunas for a year, gaining their trust and filming their most intimate ceremonies. The project eventually runs out of funds, and a bank confiscates the reels. Fifty years later, the Kunas are still waiting to discover “their” film, now a legend passed down from the elders to the new generation. One day, a hidden copy is found in Paris… but gaining access to the dusty film reels is not easy. While uncovering this fascinating story with humility and warmth, the film also turns abstract questions about the right to own one’s image and narrative into a relevant and existential necessity. A cautionary tale about how and why documentaries are made and for whom, and a testament to the power of what it means to see oneself on the big screen. God Is a Woman is Peyrot’s feature documentary debut, and premiered at the Venice Film Festival, having toured since then prestigious international film festivals such as Toronto, Stockholm, and CPH:DOX, among others.
https://raifilm.org.uk/festivals/2025/
Entry requirements: no age restrictions
Tickets for similar Bristol events.
