Alchemy Film & Arts
Using film as a way to come together, have conversations and strengthen community.
LOBBY > FULL PROGRAMME > LIVE SCHEDULE
All live screenings and events were free worldwide, include captions for D/deaf audiences.
Some of the films from this programme were also available on-demand with audio description throughout the festival.
More information about maximising your enjoyment of this year’s festival could be found on our How to Access page. An at-a-glance schedule could also be read and downloaded.
DISCUSSION EVENT: A = A
13:00 – 16:15 BST
On questions of repetition, duration and the loop, in partnership with Stuart Croft Foundation
KEYNOTE 1: VIJAY PRASHAD
19:00 – 20:00 BST
An opening: in the equation A = A, the second A is different to the first by virtue of it being second…
EXPANDED: NATASHA RUWONA
21:00 – 22:30 BST
Live audiovisual performance by Natasha Ruwona on water and the Scottish Black Atlantic
SHORTS: RETURNING ACTS
10:00 – 11:35 BST
Six films questioning ideas of belonging, prolongment, diaspora and settlement
SHORTS: UNDER THE PAVEMENT
12:30 – 14:05 BST
From curse-words to gospels, eight films confront the anxieties, habits and rituals of everyday being
SPOTLIGHT: LIBERTY: AN EPHEMERAL STATUTE
15:00 – 16:10 BST
A portrait of post-1968 desires and an artist’s mother in Scotland today
SHORTS: CHEMICAL POTENTIAL
17:00 – 18:25 BST
Between the splice and glue, seven analogue shorts give form to ghosts, memories, desires
SHORTS: MOVING STILL
19:00 – 20:30 BST
A triple-bill of films made between extraordinary worlds – of technology, labour, extraction
SHORTS: THE WORLD IS YOURS
21:00 – 22:30 BST
Five shorts at the intersection of race and environment, guest-curated by Greg de Cuir, Jr
SHORTS: PLEASE CONFIRM YOUR DETAILS
10:00 – 11:30 BST
From the micro to the macro, eleven explorations of interconnection
SHORTS: PRESENT RESIDUAL
12:30 – 14:00 BST
Five examinations of heritability, bloodlines, intergenerational experience
SPOTLIGHT: CHARLIE CHAPLIN LIVED HERE
15:00 – 16:15 BST
In 1960s London, Bill Douglas and Charlie Chaplin nearly meet
SHORTS: NATURES FURNISHED
18:00 – 19:40 BST
Eight films reflect on the simultaneities of life – and of water, life-giver and world-destroyer
EXPANDED: EMMA WOLUKAU-WANAMBWA
21:00 – 22:25 BST
May Day closes with a Ugandan sunset and a new artist talk on work
SHORTS: STOUT FOOTWEAR ADVISED
10:00 – 11:40 BST
Nine urgent dispatches curated by young people in the Scottish Borders
SHORTS: A HUMAN CERTAINTY
12:30 – 14:10 BST
Seven films find joy, disappointment and revelation in the memories and myths that make us
SHORTS: A COUNTERCHANGE OF SALTIRES
15:00 – 16:40 BST
Six films in which identity, institutions and relationships collide
FEATURE: IN VIVO + WOOPLASH
17:30 – 19:10 BST
A new feature by Karel Doing and a new short by Borders Additional Needs Group’s Branching Out
KEYNOTE 2: VIJAY PRASHAD
20:00 – 21:00 BST
The return act: in the equation A = A, the second A is different to the first by virtue of it being second…
SHORTS: POTENT GROUNDS, FANTASTICAL SKIES
21:00 – 22:40 BST
Six films looking up, looking down, and listening – onward!
© 2025 Alchemy Film & Arts