Poetry, parades and premieres: Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival 2025
Based in the Borders town of Hawick, the Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival is known for presenting artists’ film and moving image within a rigorous political and social context, with a genuine warmth and sense of community. This year’s fifteenth edition is no exception – between 1–4 May, visitors can expect screenings, exhibitions and events interrogating themes including the relationship between bodies and borders, the legacy of textile production in the area, and the creation of oral traditions. Ahead of the festival, SCAN has selected some highlights from the varied and thought-provoking programme.
Opening Film: Rum an Milk
7pm, Thursday 1 May
The festival’s home of Hawick takes centre stage for this year’s opening film, a documentary portrait of the annual Common Riding, which sees the whole town take part in a parade-cum-festival developed from a centuries-old equestrian tradition. This is an exclusive opportunity to see a preview of the documentary, produced by Alchemy and directed by artist Mark Lyken in collaboration with the Hawick community, ahead of its completion and world premiere later this year.
Focus: Adriana Vila Guevara
2:30pm, Friday 2 May
This year’s focus programme is a chance to see a suite of shorts by Venezuelan artist-filmmaker Adriana Vila Guevara, who expresses notions of identity, knowledge and loss via allusions to the poetry of Audre Lorde and Sylvia Plath, and through pure visual expression.
A Fidai Film
4:30pm, Friday 2 May
A powerful and radical work of reimagining, this award-winning feature from Kamal Aljafari reclaims archive images of Palestinian life plundered during Israel’s invasion of Beirut in 1982, foregrounding meaning with a careful combination of formal techniques and editing.
From The Depths
10am, Saturday 3 May
Alchemy’s multi-artist shorts screenings are a mainstay of the programme, offering an overview of concerns in artists’ moving image by drawing together thematically linked work from around the world. In From The Depths, six artists including Scotland-based Bobbi Cameron and Yuyan Wang from Korea (pictured) explore ancestral lineages and linguistic legacies with dream-like imagery.
On Weaving
5pm, Saturday 3 May
Shooting in 16mm, Alchemy artists in residence Luke Fowler and Corin Sworn respond to the legacies of textile artists Bernat and Margaret Klein and their modernist Scottish Borders home, interspersing observations of the house with scenes filmed in active sites of textiles production.
Excerpts On Extraction
2:30pm, Sunday 4 May
Curated by Alchemy researcher in residence Francisco Llinas. this special event explores archives of displacement within the Venezuelan diaspora, showcasing film alongside a performance irreverently reflecting on the American Dream from New York-based Venezuelan artist Esperanza Mayobre.
Exhibition: Arcade Machine
Thursday 1–Sunday 4 May
This year’s Alchemy festival includes nine moving image exhibitions in venues across the town, from artists including Hope Strickland, Lawrence Abu Hamdan and Mónica Baptista. Our pick is Arcade Machine, which showcases a new interactive videogame co-designed by Alchemy Film & Arts and Borders Additional Needs Group (BANG) exploring participants’ lived experience of neurodiversity.
Closing Film: Araya
5pm, Sunday 4 May
Closing the festival is a rare showing of Margot Benacerraf’s acclaimed 1959 feature film – a lyrical portrait of labour and the extraction of salt mines in Venezuela, screening almost one year since Benacerraf’s death.
The Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival takes place in various venues across Hawick, 1–4 May. Explore the full programme and book tickets at alchemyfilmandarts.org.uk.