Taking place on Saturday 23 and Sunday 24 of October, this year’s programme combines urgent contemporary political subjects with an eclectic mix of archive gems, including a celebration of the 150-year anniversary of the Paris Commune with the rarely screened La Commune, and an urgent focus on Black deaths in police custody, Ultraviolence.
Ireland features prominently this year, screening both The 8th which focuses on the successful campaign to approve abortion, and The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid who successfully fought against the forced selling of his farm to make way for a new factory. Hidden struggles and stories of collective support feature in Caught, a film on how a community of trans Latina migrants in Queens, New York support and rely on each other. A session using the short film The Felling of Colston as a starting point for a session on how Bristol should remember its historical links to slavery and deal with its present racial inequality.
On Sunday, The festival includes its popular shorts programme of ‘Films from the Frontline’ of current political and social campaigns, highlighting job insecurity and the gig economy, and the protests against the construction of the HS2 railway among other issues.
The festival will end by going back to the beginning by celebrating the anniversary of the Paris Commune of 1871 with a very rare screening in the UK of the complete version of Peter Watkinsʼ La Commune.

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