This year’s films portray characters who confront societal pressures, whether it’s environmental destruction, discrimination, or personal identity struggles that tell stories about the urgency of sustainable living. Simultaneously, they explore the fight for equal rights, challenging systems of oppression, striving for a future of fairness and justice. Using a wide range of innovative, experimental animation techniques (and lots of wool), the films underscore existential crises and struggles marginalised groups face, whether due to migration, race, gender, or sexual orientation, while also capturing the beauty of resilience, love, and unity in the face of adversity. Together, these deeply personal yet universal narratives create space for empathy, awareness and reflection in the search for belonging and a meaningful life.
Disrupting The Narrative was co-curated with Osbert Parker – BAFTA and Emmy nominated Director.
This programme will be open captioned including live-captioning for the Screentalk.
Panel guests will be announced soon.
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Desi Oon – Suresh Eriyat, India
Deccani wool is a testament to tradition and the sacred bond between humans, animals and nature – neglected and nearly forgotten today in the shadow of industrialisation.
2025 8’00 min
Two Black Boys in Paradise – Baz Sells, UK
Eden (19) and Dula (18) are two Black boys on a journey of self-acceptance. Their love for each other, and their refusal to hide it, lands them in a paradise free from shame and judgement. Based on the poem by Dean Atta.
2025 8’50 min
Machini – Frank Mukunday & Tetshim, Belgium / DR Congo
Using chalk drawings, stones and repurposed materials, Machini talks about the influence that mining has on the city, and the pollution and the slow destruction of man by man.
2019 9’45 min
Fiente – Jonathan Djob Nkondo, UK / France
A blue giant is disturbed by a bird’s faeces as it suddenly becomes alive.
2016 4’35 min
Dede (Ancestor) – Yasmine Djedje-Fisher-Azoume, UK
The divine female figure in West African sculpture is viewed through an exploration of the director’s Bété ancestry, drawing upon the spiritual iconography of the Bété people and other tribal groups on the Ivory Coast.
2024 3’10 min
Mental Roots – Nathan Addai, UK
Mental Roots places you in the shoes of a first-generation black Brit coming to terms with reaching his ‘breaking point’.
2021 4’00 min
Riot – Frank Ternier, France
A young black man is killed during an altercation with a vigilante neighbour and the police. An outraged crowd gathers. The sense of injustice is great. A group isolates itself. Emotion breeds a riot…in the absence of words, can the body take revenge?
2017 13’25 min
Love in the Age of EU – Ebele Okoye, Nigeria / Germany
Sometimes, we are like marionettes in the hands of those whom we have either consciously or unconsciously chosen to please. A visual adaptation of the poem “Love in the Age of EU” by Björn Kuhligk.
2014 3’00 min
Apple Gatherers – Danielle Rhoda Addae-Boateng, UK
Two workers in an apple-cider factory move through a labour-intensive world of monotony and detachment. Amid the machinery and routine, a fleeting spark of human connection reminds them what it means to feel alive.
2025 8’45 min
Only a Child – Simone Giampaolo, Switzerland
An Oscar®-shortlisted visual poem created by over 20 animation directors which gives shape and colour to the original words spoken by Severn Cullis-Suzuki at the UN Summit in Rio in 1992, a child’s desperate call to action for the future of our planet.
2021 6’45 min
Meow or Never – Neeraja Raj, UK
In a madcap musical, a catstronaut travels the galaxy looking for the meaning of life – only to encounter an overeager space pup who causes trouble at every turn! The duo go on an unexpected journey together and she discovers a lot more than she expected to find.
2020 9’40 min
Our Funding Partners
With Special Thanks to The Elf Factory, official sponsor of LIAF 2025.
Event supported by Film Hub London, managed by Film London. Proud to be a partner of the BFI Film Audience Network, funded by the National Lottery.
Venue
The Barbican is Europe’s largest multi-arts and conference venue presenting a diverse range of art, music, theatre, dance, film and education events. For more information about The Barbican and how to get there, find out more.
Barbican, Online
