SET’s inaugural festival screened every Thursday in November 2023 at SET Social in Peckham. The programme comprised three nights of curated short films, the feature film Ouvertures dir. Louis Henderson and Olivier Marboeuf (2019), and a free community and archival film night with material generously loaned from Peckham’s Feminist Library.
Our archival night explored South London’s sound system and pirate radio subcultures and included a screening of Julian Henriques’ film ‘We the Ragamuffin’ (1992), a ragga musical filmed on the now-demolished North Peckham Estate. Julian joined us for a post-film Q&A session, followed by a set from the Birmingham collective Sisters in Dub and Our Soul Sound System. Thank you to everyone who came and stuck around for a dance after!
We’re interested in what artists are making now, and wanted to start an alternative grassroots festival that would operate outside of the film industry and festival circuit. The festival is open to all genres ranging from animation to non-fiction. Several films in the programme were made for gallery contexts, such as Hetain Patel’s Trinity, Harmeet Rahal’s Chori Chori (previously exhibited as part of the Goldsmiths MFA degree show), and Alberta Whittle’s Lagareh – The Last Born, which represented Scotland at the Venice Biennale.
Our first open call was circulated publicly and amongst our studio membership of over 1,000 emerging and established artists – we kept the festival affordable and accessible to our membership by making the open call free to submit to, receiving hundreds of submissions as result, of which around a 1 in 5 came from our studio artists. Films from our membership include Trinity, by Jarman award-winning artist Hetain Patel, and the BAFTA-nominated film A Drifting Up, directed by Jacob Lee.
