REAL Documentary Festival

This new documentary explores the harrowing true story of David Oluwale, a Nigerian immigrant who was chased into the River Aire by Leeds Police in 1969.

★★★★ – Sight & Sound. Director Sean McAllister returns to his hometown of Hull as curator of its UK City of Culture opening. Reflecting on the changes to the city, he finds himself drawn to the fringes of town where he meets a warehouse worker with a dream.

A selection of UK shorts.

This compassionate new documentary follows the inhabitants of Damien John Kelly House, an abstinence-based recovery centre in Liverpool. First opened in 2019 to opposition, the centre quickly changed the hearts and minds of the local community.

★★★★ – Sunday Times. This intimate and tender documentary follows 17-year-old Ying Ling as she trains to become a mortician in one of China's largest funeral homes.

Part observational, part internal monologue, this intimate documentary follows the son of a horse-drawn traveller as he captures a snapshot of his father's lifestyle before it is lost forever. International premiere.

★★★★ – Guardian. The daughter of punk icon and X-Ray Spex frontwoman Poly Styrene revisits her mother's archives to reconcile their fraught relationship.

International Premiere. Guillaume Podrovnik’s new documentary sketches a very personal and decidedly political portrait of Margaret Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister.

★★★★★ – NME. The story of Rock Against Racism, a heroic grassroots political movement whose importance reveals itself more clearly in retrospect with every year that passes.

One trans man’s pioneering quest to fulfil an age-old desire: to start his own family. This is the story of the dad who gave birth.

A selection of international shorts.

An existential journey through the power of healing with enigmatic frontman Damo Suzuki.

Irene’s Ghost follows a son’s search to find out about the mother he never knew. He breaks the silence and tracks down her friends and family to rebuild a picture of her.

A successful character comedian tires of his profession and domestic strife and decides to drive an electric car to a remote Orkney island.

International Premiere. After twenty years of minimal contact with his mother, Allard Detiger is called back to her house as her condition deteriorates.

A selection of shorts from the UK and around the world.

A bunch of amateur film-makers, with nothing left to lose, tackle one of Hollywood's greatest musicals in order to save their beloved Bradford Film Club.

Flint Michigan is a city in crisis. Filmed over 5 years, the gripping story of largest water poisoning disaster in American history.

Among the ruins of yesterday’s future, what might we learn about the forces that shape a city?

Filmed in Leicester and Peterborough, three Roma navigate the fallout of Brexit and Covid in Mira Erdevički’s quietly radical and life-affirming documentary.

This documentary tells the shocking story of how a dream trip became a nightmare when a New York taxi mounted the sidewalk and hit 23-year-old Leicester woman, Sian Green.