13 SEPT / 18:00 / CINEMA ELVIRE POPESCO
From a young Black ballerina challenging Eurocentric beauty standards to a vibrant celebration of bubbling music in the Caribbean-Dutch diaspora, from domestic and political traumas to raw expressions of desire and love, the final competition program of BIDFF centers movement as an act of resistance. Through dance, ritual, or the simple act of existing within hostile or oppressive environments, the body reveals its vulnerability, endures, and, despite physical or emotional wounds, chooses to move forward.
ON A SUNDAY AT ELEVEN
8’50”, 2024, CA
D: Alicia K. Harris
C: Zoё Edwards
A young Black ballerina performs her Sunday rituals, while facing the pressures to conform to Eurocentric beauty standards.
BUBBLING BABY
18’33”, 2025, NL
D: Sharine Rijsenburg
Bubbling music is one of the most spirited manifestations of Caribbean-Dutch cultural heritage. The propulsive and highly danceable music symbolises freedom, power and ownership of the diaspora. This vibrant documentary celebrates bubbling’s storied history, tracing the historic and cultural roots of the club music, while exploring the contemporary scene that keeps pushing the envelope. By explicitly forefronting the female voices of bubbling, the film composes a joyful and feminist symphony of a musical scene that perfectly embodies a festive way of living.
SPOKEN MOVEMENT FAMILY HONOUR
9’48”, 2025, UK
D: Daniel Gurton
C: Kwame Asafo-Adjei
In a British-Ghanaian household bound by tradition and religion, a young girl lives under the oppressive control of her abusive father. At the family dinner table, heated arguments reveal the deep rift between them as they confront the scars of their shared history.
RAW+POROUS
19’55”, 2025, PT
D: Ágata de Pinho
Evoking the human, the organic and the extraordinary, raw+porous is an obsessive love story and a sexual entropy with surreal contours between two people that want to surrender themselves to absolute desire.
THE MOTHERFUCKER'S BIRTHDAY
6’48”, 2024, IQ
D: Saif Alsaegh
Through dancing, the film shows the evil of the dictator and the horror people endure under powerful political leaders. Saddam dances, Bush dances, so what's left for the Iraqi people except to join in.
UNTIL…
13’50”, 2023, IR
D: Tanin Torabi
C: Tanin Torabi
Until... is a single-take video, captured using only the switch between the front and back cameras of an iPhone by the performers. It was filmed during the 2022 “Woman Life Freedom” protests in Tehran, Iran. The video not only presents a highly intricate choreography, infused with the originality and urgency of what is deemed “possible” in that specific situation, but also encapsulates the essence of unity, resilience, and purposefulness demonstrated by young artists responding creatively and courageously to an actual brutal situation in Iran.
“We walk. We run. We fall. We hug those who we love and then we run again. We walk together until the walls move.”
BODY MISSING BODY
15’09”, 2023, SG
D: Grace Song
A castaway figure washes up on a strange island, unable to recall its past. It wanders around the intertidal zone, struggling to recount its violent separation from the city. This movement film explores the perishing human form in contrast with the shifting landscapes and water bodies of the island-state of Singapore's peripheral islands.