
Lemn Sissay presents a selection of short films from a new generation of artists who are inspired by poetry and the spoken word. Dying to Live; Notes on Being a Lady; Other Voices; Raised by Queenz; Terra Firma; The Siren's Song; Alice_Alice; My Grandad; The Fall; When Will It Stop?; Backwards; Covering Scars with Summer Jumpers; Is Anybody Out There?

6.8Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.
5.8When a change of circumstances leaves Miriam unable to pay her college tuition, she makes a surprising decision: to start performing in adult films, using the pseudonym Belle Knox. Miriam lies to her family and her friends at school, keeping her double life a secret. But soon rumours spread and Miriam becomes the subject of vicious online attacks and unwanted attention. Miriam fights back: she talks to the media, saying her new line of work empowers her as a feminist. But her confident stand has unintended consequences. Miriam is shunned by her conservative family and her colleagues in the adult film world. One impulsive decision has quickly spiralled out of control - and Miriam's problems are just beginning.
6.3Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
6.1In East Los Angeles, an 18-year-old struggles between her ambitions of going to college and the desires of her domineering mother for her to get married, have children, and oversee the small, rundown family-owned textile factory.
6.0Just as Amelia thinks she's over her anxiety and insecurity, her best friend announces her engagement, bringing her anxiety and insecurity right back.
6.1Time passes and tension mounts in a Florida police station as an estranged interracial couple awaits news of their missing teenage son.
7.1A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young kids of Harlem. 1996 was the 25th anniversary of the first tournament named after him.
7.5Four tales unfold in Wes Anderson's anthology of short films adapted from Roald Dahl's beloved stories, "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar", "The Swan", "The Rat Catcher", and "Poison."
6.4An acclaimed stage performer, Dorothy still struggled with the challenge of her color, in a time that wouldn't let some stars in by the front door. Yet against the odds she beat out many more famous rivals for the role of "Carmen Jones", becoming the first black woman ever nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. Marriages and affairs would break her heart, but her heart was strong. Seductive and easily seduced, she was born to be a star - with all the glory and all the pain of being loved, abused, cheated, glorified, undermined and undefeated. Here was a woman who wouldn't wait in the wings. Halle Berry stars as Dorothy Dandrige.
8.5Vincent, an artist with unresolved inner demons, meets a mysterious girl who helps him come to terms with his creative legacy… and eventual death.
7.5Offbeat documentarian Chris Smith provides a behind-the-scenes look at how Jim Carrey adopted the persona of idiosyncratic comedian Andy Kaufman on the set of Man on the Moon.
6.5When seventeen-year-old Hannah stumbles upon a website about Thinspiration--an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice--she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah's family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives?
7.3A drama-documentary presented by Alan Yentob, with Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead role. Every word spoken by the actors in this film is sourced from the letters that Van Gogh sent to his younger brother Theo, and of those around him. What emerges is a complex portrait of a sophisticated, civilised and yet tormented man.
6.4A Mexican-American master chef and father to three daughters has lost his taste for food but not for life.
6.1Benjamin, a rising star filmmaker, is on the brink of premiering his difficult second film No Self at the London Film Festival when Billie, his hard drinking publicist, introduces him to a mesmeric French musician called Noah.
7.6Ex-fighter Raymundo forms an unlikely bond with a disgruntled man whose life and relationship with his daughter are unraveling. The men join forces to win a fight that could very well save Raymundo, his wife and their child.
6.1A college student must take care of her 7-year-old half sister after the death of their parents.
6.7An aspiring young filmmaker gets involved with an eccentric gangster for the financing of his first film.
7.6A high school outcast pays a cheerleader to pose as his girlfriend so he can be considered cool.
5.5This Crime Does Not Pay entry focuses on fake spiritualists. A mother is worried about her son, who is missing in action. Over time, she gives a con man all of the family savings to find reassurance that her son is all right. When she can no longer pay, events take a tragic turn.
0.0Azerbaijan. Yagub has nothing left but beats his disabled son Musa until a shattering message brings about a sudden turn.
6.6'Bears Discover Fire' is the strange tale of a lonely man, his aging mother, his curious nephew, and a family of bears that have discovered how to use fire.
10.0Reared by an abusive, pill-popping mother and an absentee playboy father, six-year-old Valentina must fend for herself. She does what she can to craft the illusion of normalcy: makes herself lunches that look just like the ones her classmates tote, dresses and grooms herself expertly, and lies to cover up for her mother Anita's erratic behavior.
10.0In a desperate bid for attention, 11-year-old Keira compulsively steals from pregnant women at her local aquatic centre. But her actions put her at risk of losing the only family she has.
0.0The film explores a woman's journey to rediscover her ability to scream after a news report about a woman's abduction triggers a disturbing realization about her own lost primal scream.
6.5A father tries to stay connected with his unconscious daughter through music. He plays a windup music box and hopes she can hear it while fighting with his own emotions to stay strong. Meanwhile, his daughter follows the melody in her dreams and looks for a way back.
0.0Boris is around 20 years old and lives on the road with his disturbed father. When his boss offers him a better job at the restaurant where he works, Boris sees a way out off this rambling life.
4.5A man must confront the pain and trauma of a past relationship, as a former lover unexpectedly arrives on his doorstep.
Two ambulance paramedics put their lives on the line when a routine call becomes a deadly race against time.
6.9When Robin's daughter Lacy wants to buy an expensive guitar, Robin reminisces about the days when she was a teenager, asking her dad for her first car, an Olds Cutlass Supreme.
4.8Maggie's friends have planned a surprise birthday party (despite it being a month away). During the party, Maggie realizes there's more to it then that.
0.0Ubi Sunt. Porto. Cartography of an imaginary place attracted by the margins (social and geographical) Hybrid and eclectic project, it is the outcome of a audiovisual research residency of humam and urban exploration of an expanding city. Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt?, meaning "Where are those who were before us?". Reflective essay on mortality and life's transience, it emerges from that dialectic, of a and episodic and fragmented structure with a choreographed cinematography; where the memory intersects the contemporary.
6.8An untidy room. Empty beer tins, empty wine bottles, a half-empty glass of whisky... A girl is getting up absent-mindedly and starts preparing herself. YOUR morning starts. Lazy and hard-to-wake-up YOU. The emoticon is ME watching over YOU. I play tricks on YOU, while YOU are playing the guitar and drinking. One day, in town, YOU walk past THE CHILDHOOD FRIEND who is buying an Anemone I liked, and remembering that I liked them, YOU rush out to buy them. THE CHILDHOOD FRIEND displays the Anemone with care. One day, years after I died, YOU hear noise from the closet. Opened, YOU see MY garden right in front of YOU. Overflowing emotions of ME and YOU. When exiting from the room with memories, a picture of the Anemone that YOU painted is displayed in YOUR new room.
10.0Suffocated by the constant stimuli of everyday life, Mar decides to travel to her grandparents' village in northern Portugal. Upon arriving, she finds Amparo and feelings start to develop as they find comfort in their differences. A story that explores the insatiable and constant search for purpose.
5.3In the burning heat of July, Thomas and Victor, two 14 years old teenagers, are bored to death and want to escape. Victor decides to take Thomas to an abandoned bridge. He will have to confront his fears and desires.
0.0A dark musical about Iara, an ordinary girl who starts to work in a mental institution for women.
0.0A soulful coming of age story set in 1975 New York City about a young man who is forced to work under a former marine, leading them both through one summer they will never forget. Sometimes the unlikeliest of mentors become our greatest teachers.
7.0After swimming class, two 12-year-old boys, Jules and Noam, chat and discover that their grandfathers fought in World War II. One, a German soldier; the other, a Jew.