Date: October 4th, 2026
Venue: The Boardwalk
Address: 105 Brunswick Street, Glasgow, Glasgow City
G1 1TF
Discover a specially curated programme of feature and short films by Arab and SWANA filmmakers in collaboration with Exhale Group CIC and GRAMNet.
The screenings will be followed by a panel discussion with local filmmakers, hosted by Mahasin Ahmed from Exhale Group CIC.
Order of events:
Feature film, 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
Cotton Queen (2025), by Suzannah Mirghani, 94 mins
About the film:
In a cotton-farming village in Sudan, teenage Nafisa is raised on heroic tales of battling British colonisers told by her grandmother, the village matriarch Al-Sit. But when a young businessman arrives from abroad with a new development plan and genetically engineered cotton, Nafisa becomes the center of a power play to determine the future of the village. Awakening to her own strength, Nafisa sets out to save the cotton fields – and herself. Neither she nor her community will ever be the same again.
Short-film programme and panel discussion, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM
66 Days by Joude Bazzoun, 23 mins
Ancestral Gestures to an Absent Sound: A Palestinian Counternarrative by Theo Panagopoulos, 12 mins
Until We Return by Huss Al-Chokhdar, 11 mins
Photo by Sawsan Al-Areeqe, 4 mins
Henna by Basma Khalifa, 5 mins
White Musk by Fatima Wardy, 17 mins
About the films:
66 Days by Joude Bazzoun
After witnessing Israel’s 2024 onslaught on Lebanon from abroad, filmmaker JoudeBazzoun returns to her village in South Lebanon, where conversations with her familybring their losses to the surface. Through the ritual of a card game and family gatherings,the film reflects on the war's threat to erase memory and the traditions that bring themtogether.
A Land with a People: A Palestinian Counternarrative by Theo Panagopoulos
A participatory film developed with the Palestinian diaspora in Athens, Greece during the "Performing Diasporic Archival Counternarrartives" workshop. It reclaims recently unearthed 1935 film archive "Tiberias 1935" from the National Library of Scotland, collaboratively reanimating Palestinian presence in historical landscapes from which they have been erased.
Until We Return by Huss Al-Chokhdar
Until We Return drifts between memory and dream, moving from the flicker of a sixth birthday on VHS to the final unknowing farewell of a vanished home. Unfolding like a passage along the Nile, through dreamlike currents of Cairo where memory and presence blur, part vision, part yearning, part possibility. Upon its waters, a fragile utopia awakens, a world where separation never came to be, where return is still within reach, and the home once lost flows back into being.
Photo by Sawsan Al-Areeqe
With its eloquent and symbolic style, Photo celebrates the enlightening role women play in Yemeni society, despite all attempts at suppression.
Henna by Basma Khalifa
A reflection on womanhood, transformation, cultural memory and what we carry when everything else is lost. Drawn from 16 different nations where henna is woven into the fabric of life; Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Nigeria, Sierra-Leone, Ghana, Morocco, Pakistan, Tunisia, Yemen, Oman, Palestine, India, Lebanon and Somalia.
White Musk by Fatima Wardy
Loosely based on the filmmaker’s own experiences, White Musk explores the tension that arises when a child is forced to parent their own parent. When her mother, Suraya, falls gravely ill, 19-year-old Hiba becomes her primary caregiver, while her older brother Hisham moves through the household largely unburdened. We watch Hiba and Suraya love each other and wound each other in equal measure, locked in a push and pull that neither knows how to break. As Suraya’s condition worsens, Hiba must navigate what it means to care for someone who cannot easily receive care, and what it costs her to keep showing up anyway.
About the host:
Mahasin Ahmed is a Scottish-Sudani community organiser, researcher and DJ. They aim to support BPoC and Queer liberation, creating spaces and opportunities to heal, connect and build solidarity as founder of Exhale.Group CIC, an organisation supporting Queer and Trans Black people and People of Colour in Scotland, and co-founder of SWANA nightlife and event collective WSHWSH and formerly Mojxmma.
Part of Funoun Scotland Festival by MARSM: a three-day multidisciplinary celebration of contemporary Arab and SWANA creativity.
Supported using public funding by Creative Scotland.
