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Leeds International Film Festival · 2026

Leeds International Film Festival 2026

Cinema Versa

Programme

20 films · 3 reviews

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Adam's Apple

Review preview for Adam's Apple

The ordinary material of growing up mingles here with trans-specific experiences.

Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
A transgender teen and his mother chronicle their lives, weaving a rare and intimate portrait of a family in transition. Two decades of footage trace a boy's path to manhood and his parents' vulnerability as they reckon with change.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Amy K Jenkins; Writer: Adam Sieswerda; Stars: Adam Sieswerda, Elias Sieswerda, John Sieswerda)

Full review

The Apologist

Through the ritual of saying sorry, a journey explores how apologies redefine history and what happens to us as witnesses to the act of atonement.

(Country: Belgium, Netherlands, France; Year: 2026; Director: Kristof Bilsen)

Barbara Forever

Review preview for Barbara Forever

What emerges over the course of O’Connor’s feature is not a saintly monument but a vibrant, difficult, funny, and unsentimental person.

Edin Custo · 4 out of 5
An archive-driven exploration of the life, work, and legacy of iconic, pioneering lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Brydie O'Connor)

Full review See: Brydie O’Connor on Barbara Forever, queer wisdom and bringing Barbara Hammer to younger audiences

Daughters Of The Forest

Deep in Mexico's forests, two Indigenous mycologists seek to reconcile the past and present while reimagining the future for themselves and the changing world they inhabit.

(Country: Mexico; Year: 2026; Director: Otilia Portillo Padua; Writer: Sheerly Avni, Greg Boustead, Sara Dosa; Stars: Eliseete Ramirez Carbajal, Julia Dolores Raimundo, Julieta Serafina Amaya, Olivia Ayala Vázquez)

Germaine Acogny: The Essence of Dance

A documentary about the 'mother of African contemporary dance', one of Africa's most important artistic voices and the dancing icon of an entire continent.

(Country: Germany, France; Year: 2025; Director: Greta-Marie Becker; Writer: Greta-Marie Becker; Stars: Germaine Acogny)

The History Of Concrete

After attending a workshop on how to write and sell a Hallmark movie, filmmaker John Wilson tries to use the same formula to sell a documentary about concrete.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: John Wilson)

The Illusion Of An Everlasting Summer (La ilusión de un verano sin fin)

Filmed over 25 years, this intimate documentary traces the lives of two inseparable cousins in the rural Argentine Pampas.

(Country: Argentina, US; Year: 2026; Director: Alessandra Sanguinetti; Stars: Guillermina Aranciaga, Belinda Stutz, Juana Falconet)

Into The Jaws Of The Ogre

Two Iranian siblings navigate the vast American landscape and their homeland's turbulent history. Blends poetry and music to portray an Iranian punk singer, offering a tender, sweeping tribute from sister to brother.

(Year: 2026; Director: Mahsa Karampour)

Joybubbles

Joybubbles discovers he can manipulate the telephone system by whistling a magic tone. Born blind and yearning for connection, his early obsession unwittingly lays the groundwork for a subculture that shapes the future of hacking and technology.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Rachael J Morrison)

Last Movies

What will be the last film you watch before you die? What if that film reveals something about you as a person? What if that film makes you die? Cinema has been shaped in the image of our stars. This documentary reconstructs the history of the moving image through the last films ever watched by these stars.

(Country: UK; Year: 2026; Director: Stanley Schtinter)

Like A Fortress (Comme Une Chateau Fort)

After the sudden disappearance of her partner one summer in Corsica, Lou Colpé returns to Charleroi. Their home, a place where the absence is tangible, is transformed into a sanctuary. Everything there becomes a treasure and a ritual. She films what is reinvented every day: her survival.

(Country: Belgium; Year: 2026; Director: Lou Colpé)

My Father's Kora

An Afro-German trans man journeys to Dakar, Senegal, to restore his father's kora, a traditional stringed instrument, seeking identity, belonging and acceptance within a traditional Muslim culture.

(Country: Benin, Switzerland, Germany; Year: 2026; Director: Aymar A Esse; Writer: Aymar A Esse; Stars: Souleymane Everston Adowo Freudenreich)

Nuisance Bear

Review preview for Nuisance Bear

By viewing the situation, at least initially, mostly from the perspective of the bears, the directors ask us to consider who exactly is trespassing on whose turf.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
A polar bear is forced to navigate a human world of tourists, wildlife officers, and hunters as its ancient migration collides with modern life. When a sacred predator is branded a nuisance, it becomes unclear who truly belongs in this shared landscape.

(Country: US, Canada, United Kingdom; Year: 2026; Director: Gabriela Osio Vanden, Jack Weisman)

Full review See: Jack Weisman and Gabriel Osio Vanden on working together and making naivety work for them in Nuisance Bear , Gabriela Osio Vanden and Jack Weisman on balance and perspectives in Nuisance Bear

Once Upon A Time In Harlem

A decade after his death, genre-defying filmmaker William Greaves has one last trick up his sleeve with what he considered the most important event he captured on film: a 1972 party he engineered with the living luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: William Greaves, David Greaves)

Rebellion

In 1981, 12 young Asian men stood trial on terrorism charges for defending Bradford from an imminent racist attack. Their fight for their city – and their freedom – became international news, awakening public consciousness to the rise of fascism and the far-right. This film charts the story.

(Country: UK; Year: 2026; Director: Ken Fero, Tariq Mehmood)

Rehearsals For A Revolution

Through five portraits of relatives and mentors, five expressions of resistance, Pegah Ahangarani sketches her life story.

(Country: 2026; Director: Pegah Ahangarani)

School For Defectors

In an industrial area of Busan, South Korea sits the tiny Jangdaehyun School. It has just 20 students - all of whom are North Korean defectors.

(Country: South Korea, US; Year: 2026; Director: Jeremy Workman)

Summer 2000: The X-Cetra Story

In the summer of 2000, four pre-teen friends formed a band called X-Cetra and burned a homemade album onto a few CD-Rs. The following year, consumed by adolescent concerns of boys and drug store shoplifting, their labor of love was quickly forgotten.... Until 20 years later, when someone uploaded it online.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Ayden Mayeri; Writer: Ayden Mayeri, Barry Rothbart; Stars: Ayden Mayeri, Jessica Hall, Janet Kariuki, Mary Washburn, Robin O'brien)

Ultimate Thunder

A punk band whose members have learning disabilities and Down syndrome fight to reach a bigger stage as funding cuts, health scares and setbacks close in.

(Country: UK; Year: 2026; Director: Ben G Brown)

Whispers In May (Chun Ri Huan You)

In the remote Liangshan Mountains, 14-year-old Qihuo and her friends set out to find a skirt for her rite of passage. What begins as a small quest drifts into a suspended space of childhood, where time slows and the world is vast.

(Country: Hong Kong, Netherlands, South Korea, Sweden, China; Year: 2026; Director: Dongnan Chen; Stars: Mathxiemop Atnyop, Qi Huo, Lhithxamop Itgop, Lhithxamop Itsi)