Event type: Film

Anti-cool and Waugh Office (Julia Waugh & Mark Waugh) present the premiere of Tea and Sugarcane. The film follows the lives of two male victims of human trafficking and slavery in the UK, revealing the story of how they came to find themselves in this situation. Through interviews, we explore their upbringings, families and childhood dreams and discover the triggers which made them take such a risky path to the UK.

Alongside Tea and Sugarcane, Anti-cool also presents two of their recent experimental audio-visual works: Wind, Land and Sea and Echo Tides.

This event includes a discussion with Anti-cool and Julia and Mark Waugh (Waugh Office), followed by a Q&A with the audience. The event is supported by Arts Council England.

Doors: 18:30. Screening: 19:00.

Director Firas Khoury’s coming-of-age story follows Tamer (Mahmood Bakri), a Palestinian teenager living in Israel, and his friends as he comes to grips with his fraught heritage.

The arrival of an outspoken classmate, Maysaa (Sereen Khass), catalyses Tamer’s political awakening, as he agrees to take part in a mysterious flag operation on the eve of Israel’s Independence Day which is a mourning day for Palestinians.

Through his film, Khoury attempts to bring to light the circumstances under which Palestinian youth are forced to develop, and the sharp existential contradictions they are subjected to at a young age.

The film premiered at Toronto International Film Festival and received the Golden Pyramid at the Cairo International Film Festival.

“In this film I wish to give prominence to the Palestinian youth, who have willingly and, despite all, chosen to turn their peaceful struggle against injustice into their primary vocation. High school students with courageous souls have become a great source of inspiration to me, since I began following and observing them in recent years. My aim in this film is to expose their struggle to define and reinvent themselves, as well as to bring forth their personal story.” – Firas Khoury, Director

Doors: 15:30. Screening: 16:00.

Based on the horror novella by writer Nikolai Gogol, Viy tells the story of Khoma Brut (Leonid Kuravlyov), a student at a monastery in Kiev.

While travelling home at the end of term with two fellow seminarians the group become lost. As night falls they take shelter at the house of an older woman but as Khoma begins to sleep, he is awoken by the woman who snatches him up to fly together through the night sky.

Realising he has been caught by a witch, Khoma struggles free and takes his revenge. As the witch takes her final breath, she transforms into a young woman (Natalya Varley) causing Khoma to panic and flee the scene. Back at the monastery, a delegation arrives demanding that Khoma must watch and pray over the corpse of the young woman for three nights. Arriving at the village, the student soon discovers that he must spend the nights locked in the church alone with the body of the very witch he’d left for dead.

Gogol was one of the first to use the technique of the grotesque in his writing. His early works are influenced by his Ukrainian upbringing, Ukrainian culture and Viy in particular brings together many disparate elements from folklore. Known for its masterful cinematic effects by Soviet animator and fantasy film director Aleksandr Ptushko, the film is “a must-see for every aficionado of folk-horror and dark fairytales.” – Anne Billson, Sight & Sound.

Doors: 18:30. Screening: 19:00

Winner of the Cannes Film Festival Golden Eye Prize, Stefano Savona’s 2018 documentary follows the Samouni family; a small community of farmers who are about to celebrate a wedding in the rural outskirts of Gaza City.

It’s going to be the first celebration since the last war. Amal, Fuad, their brothers and their cousins have lost their parents, their houses and their olive trees. The neighbourhood where they live is being rebuilt.

As they replant trees and plough fields, they face their most difficult task: piecing together their own memory. Through these young survivors’ recollections, Samouni Road conveys a deep, multifaceted portrait of a family before, during and after the tragic event that changed its life forever.

Doors: 15:30. Screening: 16:00.

When members of a dance troupe are lured to an empty school, drug-laced sangria causes their jubilant rehearsal to descend into a dark and explosive nightmare as they try to survive the night and find out who’s responsible – before it’s too late.

Loosely based on the true story of a French dance troupe in the 1990s, “Gaspar Noé’s cinematic dance party will blow your mind” – Gregory Ellwood, Collider.

The 2019 psychological horror directed, written and co-edited by Noé features unusual cinematography choices, including several long takes and one lasting over 42 minutes. The film’s dizzying and psychedelic visuals are energised by it’s on-the-spot improv from the cast, who who were provided no lines of dialogue beforehand and had almost complete liberty as to where to take the story and characters. Produced by A24, the film stars actress and dancer Sofia Boutella.

Doors: 18:30. Screening: 19:00