2025 Festival Highlights
Gerry Adams: A Ballymurphy Man
2025 Winner
Documentary | 01:57:24 | Mexico/Northern Ireland
Directed by: Trisha Ziff
Gerry Adams: A Ballymurphy Man is a biographical documentary showing how the political leadership of one individual helped the people of Northern Ireland to ultimately achieve a life of quality and peace.
An intensely private man protecting his family from the public eye, this is the first time Gerry Adams has told his own story. Interwoven with his words, the film shares a wealth of imagery of what is one of the most documented conflicts of our time, giving an insight into Adams’ world in a relaxed, informal, and uncensored way.
As one of the most controversial political leaders and visionaries of our time, Adams led the people of Northern Ireland from conflict to peace from the time he got involved in politics in 1968 until the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) ceasefire in 1994. Today Adams is an elder statesman supporting the next generations on their peaceful and inclusive path toward Irish unity.
2025 Official Selections
Message
2025 Official Selection
Fiction | 9:09 | Iran
Directed by: Saeed Moltaji
A determined female reporter in a war-torn Gaza, facing poor internet conditions, decides to take all her memory cards to her colleague in the news agency building. She hopes he can send the videos. She faces obstacles along the way…
Shot the Voice of Freedom
2025 Official Selection
Documentary | 1:10:42 | Afghanistan
Directed by: Zainab Entezar
This is a story about two sisters who have decided to fight against the unfortunate fate that has befallen them in Afghanistan. They protest against the loss of their basic rights, including the right to education, work, clothing, and even the right to walking alone. Now, these two sisters are striving to make their voices heard to the world and fight for their rights against the Taliban.
Together We Stand
2025 Official Selection
Documentary | 1:53:11 | Greece
Directed by: Stavros Stagos
The Polytechnic University uprising in November 1973 was the turning point of the resistance against the military junta that ruled Greece at the time. This documentary recreates the events that led up to those six days and reveals details that have stayed in the shadows until now. At its heart, though, it’s about the personal stories of those who were there—what drew them to the uprising, how it transformed them, and the lasting imprint it left on their lives, shaping them in ways that words can hardly express. Between settling for the comfort of security and embracing the challenge of freedom, we must always choose freedom.
The End Was Just The Beginning
2025 Official Selection
Fiction | 20:24 | Portugal
Directed by: Antonio Aleixo
When Catarina finds out that she is pregnant, she questions the responsibility and consequences of bringing a child into this world and age.
Choeurs Atlantique
2025 Official Selection
Documentary | 30:27 | USA
Directed by: Safoi Babana-Hampton
The film is a poignant personal memory quest that begins at the Bay of Diamant, in Martinique, and carries us to 3 continents, to shine light on what it means to be black today in a globally interconnected world, as seen through the eyes of Martinican artist Laurent Valère and his transatlantic dialogs with the black diaspora.
The forgotten slave shipwreck in the Bay of Diamant, Martinique, becomes the starting point for a poignant personal journey and global memory quest through the silences of French Caribbean history. It unearths a Caribbean memory long relegated to the margins: that of a shipwrecked slave ship, and the struggle of enslaved people for their freedom and dignity. It questions the legacies of colonialism, the silences of official history, and the way in which Afro-descendant communities carry, transform, and reclaim this memory across generations and give rise to visions of better futures.