Now in its 16th year, Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival continues to strengthen its commitment to presenting an artistically ambitious programme of artists’ moving image and new cinema. A platform for emerging and established artists and filmmakers, the Festival is inspired by its surroundings to push boundaries and explore the unexplored.
Over 10,000 visitors joined us in September 2019 to attend our programme of the most distinctive and unexpected works of new cinema being made around the world today. We welcomed audiences to the borders of England and Scotland for 4 days of screenings, exhibitions, performances and seminars.
BFMAF was like a potion that, once consumed, transformed the whole world into a cinema.
Christopher Small, MUBI, 2019
'Berwick’s bristling artistic spirit—contesting, contorting and re-shaping the traditions of the medium to tell bold new stories and challenge the status quo.'
Ben R Nicholson - Mubi, 2018
'One of the UK’s most exciting destinations for the exhibition of artists’ film and video'
Erika Balsom - Frieze, 2017
The Berwick New Cinema Award
All single screen works under 60 minutes in length are eligible for the Berwick New Cinema Award and a £1000 (approximately $1400 USD) prize.
The 2019 winning was Onyeka Igwe for her film 'the names have changed, including my own and truths have been altered'. Onyeka's film has been selected for this year's Bright Futures programme at International Film Festival Rotterdam.
The 2019 Jury were Callum Hill (winner of the 2018 Berwick New Cinema Award); Hyun Jin Cho (film curator, Korean Cultural Centre UK); and Julian Ross (programmer, Locarno Film Festival & International Film Festival Rotterdam).
https://www.bfmaf.org/news/onyeka-igwe-wins-the-2019-berwick-new-cinema-award