Event type: Film

LMF Short Film Sandbox Showcase

 

The Sandbox Showcase – Edition Four

Presented by Let’s Make Films CIC

? Picturehouse @ FACT – Liverpool

The Sandbox Showcase is Liverpool’s alternative creative film night. A vibrant evening built around the bold and exciting short pieces of work, the emerging filmmakers and creatives and a community-led night that is bursting with creative energy and life. All here to celebrate the work on the biggest screen. 

Now in its fourth edition, The Sandbox has become a creative home for filmmakers who are doing things differently! First-timers, grassroots crews, DIY Storytellers and new voices that have exciting stories to tell! 

The event takes place at Picturehouse @ FACT and features a carefully curated lineup of 10-12 short pieces of work. Some are emotional, some are experimental, some are terrifying, but most importantly, all of them bring a unique voice to the big screen. You will get a chance to hear from the creatives about their work and process before screening their work. The night will also include the winner of our special DIY challenge, a quarterly filmmaking challenge that pushes creatives to make something from nothing. 

The Sandbox isn’t just a screening either. We offer a pre-creative mixer before the show starts where you can get yourself a drink and relax and mingle with your fellow creatives and community. And even better, after the final film rolls, you can continue the conversation in the bar in the post-creative mixer and meet the creatives behind the work that you loved seeing. 

What to expect throughout the night:

  • A packed cinema screening 10-12 bold peices of creative work.
  • A DIY film made for our Trial & Error challenge. 
  • Meet the creatives behind the work in our creative mixers.
  • Music, good vibes and a community-first atmosphere. 

 

If you’re an emerging filmmaker, creative, artists, storyteller, or just a film-fan looking for something different in the city, then the Sandbox is perfect for you. 

So, come along, bring a mate, come by yourself, grab a drink and be part of special night that belongs to the creatives. 

 

The Harder They Come

 

THE EVENT

In this mix of crime, blaxploitation and western, Ivan (played by reggae superstar Jimmy Cliff) wants to make it big as an reggae artist. But after becoming victim to the deep rooted corruption that goes on from the police to the record producers, this country boy fights tooth and nail, with blood, sweat and more blood to get what he wants and prove to the city folk that he’s not to be messed with. As writer-director Perry Henzell comments on the complexities of 1970’s capitalism, the prison system, poverty and stardom, we’re left to ask the question, “what would you do to make it?”.

With an iconic soundtrack and cult status in Jamaican cinema, this independence day I want to celebrate with The Harder They Come, good music and good food! Come and grab your ticket today, what are you waiting for?

Tickets start from £1 so grab yours now by clicking the link on the right or on the door!

7:00PM – DOORS OPEN

We’ll be serving refreshments

7:30PM – THE HARDER THEY COME BEGINS

9:00PM – POST SCREENING DISCUSSION

THE FILM

Year: 1972

Runtime: 1h 43m

Certificate: 15

Director: Perry Henzell

Writers: Perry Henzell, Trevor D. Rhone

Country: Jamaica

Languages: Jamaican Patois, English

Genre: Action, Crime, Drama, Western

Cast: Jimmy Cliff, Janet Bartley, Carl Bradshaw

Synopsis: Wishing to become a successful reggae singer, a young Jamaican man finds himself tied to corrupt record producers and drug pushers.

The Harder They Come trailerThis screening is in collaberation with Liverpool African Diaspora Film Network

Presented by Black Girl Watching Film Club

 

The Legend of the Looms

Join LAAF for a screening and conversation with poet and filmmaker Ali Al-Jamri on his first film, described as a poetic ghost story.

The Legend of the Looms is Ali Al-Jamri’s first film: a poetic ghost story.When a visitor to a historic weaver’s house in Rossendale accidentally summons an irate Lancashire weaver’s ghost, his own ancestor, an Arab weaver from Bahrain, materialises to defend him.

Watch the trailer.

Working in film for the first time, Ali Al-Jamri’s The Legend of The Looms is both a poem and a film exploring shared revolutionary histories through handloom weaving. It is a narrative debate poem between two ghostly weavers: one from the North West, where weavers were critical in working class movements; the other from Bahrain, where weaving communities played vital roles in reform movements.

Filmed with the weavers of Al-Jamri’s own family in Bahrain, and in Rossendale Valley, at a historic weaver’s cottage in Rawtenstall, the piece dances between place, fact and folklore, creating a new myth that explores how people of the diaspora can relate to an unlikely new landscape through the interconnectivity of oppressions, craft, and mortality.

Ali Al-Jamri is one of Manchester’s inaugural Multilingual City Poets (2022-2025). The film is commissioned by the Arab British Centre and funded by Arts Council England and the Freelands Foundation. It was first exhibited at Blackburn Art Gallery with the British Textile Biennial.

Dounia Part 1 & 2: Cinema at Crosby Plaza

 

Join LAAF for this family friendly screening of animated films Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo, and Dounia – The Great White North.

 

 

Dounia And The Princess of Aleppo (2022) A few nigella seeds tucked in the palm of her hand, 6-year-old Dounia leaves Syria with the Princess of Aleppo’s help and travels towards a new world.

Dounia – The Great White North (2024, UK premiere) is an animated winter special about how little Dounia, the Syrian girl now aged 7 years old, finds a new home and makes new friends in beautiful Canada, while hoping her dad will join her soon.

The creator and author of Dounia, Marya Zarif, was born and raised in Aleppo, Syria. She has lived in Canada for the past 15 years but remains very attached to her country of origin and the plight of Syrian refugees fleeing the war. “Like Dounia, because I come from Syria, I know that there is nothing more wonderful than a land where people, cultures, colours, languages and customs meet and mix. It has been Syria for millennia; it is the world of today. I gave birth to all those characters to give faces to all the migrants who have become numbers and whose humanity is forgotten. Dounia is a declaration of love to my people and a gift to those who open their arms to them,” she says.

André Kadi, who arrived in Canada in 2007 as a graphic novel author and a musician, joined Frima animation studios, where he stayed for over 11 years. At the head of the artistic department, he founded a branch of the studio in Bordeaux , and opened a 2D animation studio in 2012, where he made the series MaXi and Agent Jean in particular, before co- founding Du Coup Animation in 2018 with Marie-Michel le Laflamme, then Du Coup Production in 2021. A rigorous studio head who directs most of Du Coup’s projects, he co-directed Dounia in 2020 on behalf of Tobo, with Marya Zarif.

Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo is his first feature film.

Age recommendation: 6+£6 (Free entry for under 16s)

Doors 1:30pm / Screening 2pm

Venue:

 

 

Crozby Plaza, 13 Crosby Rd N, Waterloo, Liverpool L22 0LD

 

Film Screening: Daughters (2024)

Directed by Natalie Rae, Daughters (2024) follows four young girls as they prepare for a special Daddy Daughter Dance with their incarcerated fathers, part of a unique fatherhood programme inside a Washington, DC jail. The film explores themes of family, resilience, and connection under challenging circumstances.

Daughters was selected by artist Amber Akaunu, who was drawn to its powerful exploration of themes that resonate deeply and mirror those central to her own work.

Akaunu is currently exhibiting at Bluecoat as part of the Liverpool Biennial with her “incredibly touching” and “powerful” film, Dear Othermother.

Inspired by the African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child,” Dear Othermother offers a deeply personal reflection on single motherhood in Toxteth, an area of Liverpool where one in six households are headed by a single parent.

1hr47minRecommended for ages 13+

Thu 24 July, 6pmFree, booking required

Marvin Booker Was Murdered | Film Screening

The film tells the redemptive story of how Marvin Booker, a black, homeless, street preacher was beaten to death by five Denver jail guards for wanting to get his shoes. It then covers Marvin’s beautiful, devout, family from Memphis. Their two incredible civil rights attorneys in Denver. And, clergy, activists, and communities from both cities, who sought to restore Marvin’s constitutional rights in a groundbreaking 2014 federal civil rights jury trial.

Proceedings go to Denver Documentary Society that furthers the outreach and impact of documentaries on humanity. Denver Documentary Society stands for the underdog, independent filmmaking, civil rights, social justice, the environment, music and resilience.

Archiving Nostalgia

LAAF are delighted to present Archiving Nostalgia, a film screening featuring two short films and a feature length documentary.

This event showcases contemporary Arab films from Lebanon, Tunisia, and Algeria that reflect on nostalgia as both a thematic and aesthetic tool, all creating powerful archives of personal and collective memory. The screening will be followed by an in-person panel discussion on Arab cinema archiving.

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

Please note that doors open 30 minutes before the screening and the programme will begin promptly at the listed time.

Venue:

FACT, 88 Wood Street, Liverpool, L1 4DQ

Reel Tours: Mega Movie Quiz in a Theatre

 

The most exciting film quiz in Liverpool… in a theatre.

 

 

Join Reel Tours on the third Thursday of every month downstairs in the Everyman to test your cinematic knowledge in the most exciting film quiz in Liverpool… in a theatre.

Whatever your area of expertise, be it Golden Age Hollywood, Foreign flicks or the most recent Blockbusters, we cover all decades, genres and talent. There are also some lovely prizes which could be yours, your own, your precious.

Reel Tours is your cinematic map of the world. We provide walking tours to the many filming locations in Liverpool as well as hosting numerous other events in the region, such as interactive quizzes, film screenings, talks & much more.

• £3 per-person• Teams up to 6 members• 8pm start (doors from 7.30pm, first come, first served)

reeltours.co.uk 

 

Holloway film screening / Q&A with director and producer at FACT, 4th July 2025.

 

Join Reclaim The Frame for a special screening with the crew of this extraordinary film. 

HOLLOWAY brings together six women who return to the now-closed Holloway Prison to share deeply personal stories of incarceration, trauma, and transformation. Through their women’s circle, the film explores how failing systems intersect with lived experience, and how sisterhood can create healing and change.

Directed by BAFTA Breakthrough Brit Daisy-May Hudson and EMMY nominated Sophie Compton, this deeply moving documentary feature was made via a unique process of a trauma-informed co-creation with six contributors: Aliyah Ali, Mandy Ogunmokun, Sarah Cassidy, Lady Unchained, Gerrah, and Tamar Mujanay.

HOLLOWAY is a profound, meditative, eye-opening and ultimately inspiring exploration of trauma and the immense human capacity for recovery.

Screenings is with dialogue subtitles and audio description.

?Liverpool 

 4 July, 6pm | FACT

 Q+A with co-director Daisy-May Hudson and producer Polly Creed

Tickets available here