New Grounds
Programme curated by Lyse Ishimwe Nsengiyumva
Xenophobia, fascism, and anti-immigrant rhetoric are surging once more. The amplification of a ‘them versus us’ binary serves as a weapon of the political elite, stoking division, while each election cycle resurrects the same exhausted refrains, increasingly dangerous, increasingly disruptive. Yet beyond the political spectacle lie real people: people with a desire for freedom, dreams of a better and safer life, and the deep, aching longing for the worlds they departed. Still, time moves forward. Bodies cross man-made borders in search of a dignified existence.
The films in this program offer a glimpse into the everyday intricacies of starting a new life in a foreign country while remaining tethered to the one abandoned. Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor’s For Love (2021) reveals how fragile relationships become under the unforgiving weight of the UK immigration system. In The Last Harvest (2025), Nuno Boaventura Miranda offers an intergenerational portrait of a Cape Verdean community and diaspora living in Lisbon as they grapple with questions of identity and a shared longing for connection. Finally, We Were the Scenery (2025), a creative collaboration between director Christopher Radcliff and writer Cathy Linh Che, centers on two refugees who escaped the Vietnam War only to be cast as background extras in a reenactment of the same war. Still, time moves forward; new lives are pieced together in community, and resilience endures, with a quiet and stubborn perseverance in search of a better life.
We Were The Scenery
Christopher Radcliff, United States, Vietnam, Philippines, documentary, 2025, 15'
The Last Harvest
Nuno Boaventura Miranda, Cabo Verde, Portugal, fiction, 2025, 22'
For Love
Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor, UK, fiction, 2021, 13'