Document Saturday Shorts Programme

Year upon year, some of the best documentaries we receive are under 30 minutes in length. Managing to get right to the heart of a niche story or offer unexpected insight in a flash is a skill that continually surprises us.

This year we have chosen to honour that craft with a dedicated shorts programme in Intermedia Gallery. All screenings here will be free-of-charge. Outside of screenings, the space will function as an open social hub for informal talks and discussion.

Intermedia will also play host to our videotheques which allow visitors to view our full shorts programme on demand over the festival weekend.

3pm: 50 Feet From Syria
50 Feet From Syria is a portrait of surgeon Hisham Bismar as he performs intricate acts of medical necessity undeterred by the chaos and complexity of war around him. The film serves as a snapshot in time of the plight of refugees displaced by the Syrian uprising and indelibly communicates the human cost of one of most brutal, dehumanizing conflicts in modern history that continues to destroy and displace millions of lives.

4pm: Limpiadores
Migrating is seldom an easy solution. It is rather a journey, that begins with a journey. After more than eight years of campaigning, the immigrant cleaners outsourced at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London continue to demand being brought in-house. Limpiadores charts the history of their and others’ campaigns - from winning the London Living Wage to the deportation of nine colleagues, and the day-to- day invisible labour of cleaners on our campus.

5pm: Sheerin of Al-Walaja
An intimate portrait of the day-to-day life of a dynamic popular resistance leader from Palestine who left her full-time job with the UN to return to her home village of al-Walaja and fight for its survival. Shot on location over a four-year-period, Shireen of al-Walaja examines the philosophical and psychological drivers behind tireless resistance, providing a refreshingly candid and inspiring insight into just what it is that motivates someone to become a full-time activist