Events Schedule
Programme / Events Schedule
All films and events are free for Pass Holders. Unless otherwise stated, it is not necessary to book if are joining us in-person; simply show your In-Person Pass at the door. Buy your Festival Pass here.
Please note: due to limited capacity, four of the events in our programme (Opening Night, Sunday Lunch and Closing Night events) require that you book in advance. See more information on how to book in the event details below.
Friday 23rd June
Opening Night & Drinks Reception
In-Person: 19:00 - 23:00, Main Hall
Online: Recording and transcript available following day
Welcome to Fringe of Colour Films 2023! Festival Co-Directors Jess Brough, Tomiwa Folorunso and Carmen Thompson will be joined by Arusa Qureshi to open the festival and talk about why we're back in hybrid form and what you can expect from this year's programme. More Info Here.
To attend this event, you must book (Free with an In-Person Pass)
Saturday 24th June
Walk Together
In-Person: 11:00 - 13:00 | St Margarets Well, near Dynamic Earth
Online: In your own time, in your chosen space
Alaya Ang will lead us in a gentle walk around Arthur’s seat (not to the top). The walk will focus on the particular landscape of Arthur’s seat as an ancient volcano and how a landscape saturated with the presence of people who have walked on it can bear traces for us to think about connection and loss.
There will be prompts for writing and reflection, if you wish! A small snack and juice will be available.
Online audiences
You are encouraged to use this time to take your own walk through nature - in a local park, a nearby forest, even your back garden. Ashanti Harris will provide the audio guided workshop Listening With The Body – all you need are your headphones. More Info Here
Screening: Nourish
In-Person: 14:30 - 15:45 | Split rooms
Red Lecture Theatre (CC/BSL) and Cairns Lecture Theatre (AD)
Online: In your own time, in your chosen space
Screening the films in the Nourish Strand.
To nourish is to give, and to be nourished is to be watered, held, and carefully sustained. The first strand of our programme is an invitation to allow our audiences to be nourished through this collection of films and those to come. The films here reveal the nourishment that comes from tracing our histories, spending moments in nature, and connecting with our ancestors through food. Nourishing ourselves, our bodies, our communities and minds.
Discussion: Art & Environmental Sustainability
In-Person: 16:00 - 17:00 | Main Hall
Online: Recording and transcript available following day
The 2023 Fringe of Colour Films programme takes audiences on a journey through the life cycle of a plant, prompting us to think about our connection to and relationship with our environment - specifically as Black and Indigenous people and People of Colour. In this panel, we will discuss the role of film and the arts in environmental sustainability and climate justice, and our responsibilities as both creatives and audience members. This event is supported by Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, and funded by Screen Scotland and National Lottery funding from the BFI.
Screening: Symbiosis & Extended Intro
In-Person: 19:00 - 20:30 | Split rooms
Red Lecture Theatre (CC/BSL) and Cairns Lecture Theatre (AD)
Online: In your own time, in your chosen space
Screening the films in the Symbiosis Strand.
Symbiosis is a mutually beneficial interaction. In plant life, it can signify a positive relationship between two different species or the relationship between the plant and its land. The symbiotic relationships we, as humans, experience are invaluable, and the films here articulate the one between nature and ourselves. How does nature take care of us, hold us and pour into us and how do we, in return, take care of nature.
This screening will include a Before the Applause episode with April Lin 林森.
Sunday 25th June
Relaxed Screening: Kids Go Free
In-Person: Split times. 10:00 - 11:15 (CC/BSL) and 11:15 - 12:30 (AD) | Main Hall
Online: In your own time, in your chosen space
An additional screening of (Tending) (to) (Ta) by April Lin 林森 with a Relaxed setting. You are invited and encouraged to bring your children with you, who will be able to enjoy the captivating visuals of the film while keeping their hands busy with colouring and other activities. Children do not require a festival Pass to attend this screening.
This screening is occuring in the Main Hall twice and back-to-back; first with Closed Captions and British Sign Language and second with integrated Audio Descriptions.
Sunday Lunch
In-Person: 13:00 - 15:00 | The Gallery Bar
For this year's festival, we've partnered with Edinburgh's Knights Kitchen, who will be taking over the menu at The Gallery Bar in Summerhall for the whole weekend (24 & 25 June). On Sunday, we invite our audience to break bread with us at a special sit down lunch. Free with a Festival Pass, but space limited.
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To attend this event, you must book (Free with an In-Person Pass)
Discussion: Critiquing Critique - Whose Writing Matters?
In-Person: 15:30 - 16:30 | Main Hall
Online: Recording and transcript available following day
Our Responses publishing platform is dedicated to writing about performance art and film in a way that challenges the more quantitative-oriented culture of reviewing. This panel will consider the place of traditional arts critique, and its relationship to filmmakers, artists, writers, and audiences. Editorial Director, Tomiwa Folorunso will be joined by Glasgow-based Naomi Gessesse who works in film curation and criticism, writer and Take One Action programmer, Xuanlin Tham and director of Violeta & Sofia (Nourish Strand), Noah Isa Berhitu. Together they’ll consider enriching ways in which film, art and writers can engage and be in dialogue with each other.
This event is supported by Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, and funded by Screen Scotland and National Lottery funding from the BFI.
Screening: Soil + Filmmaker Q&A
In-Person: 19:00 - 20:30 | Split rooms
Red Lecture Theatre (CC/BSL) and Cairns Lecture Theatre (AD)
Online: In your own time, in your chosen space
Screening the films in the Soil Strand.
It is in the soil that seeds are sown, hopeful that roots will grow, where the life cycle begins once more. At times there may be roots in the soil that we never knew existed, or fruits on the surface wilting away. The films in Soil touch speak to the ways in which this cyclical state takes place in our own lives, with productions touching on grief and the mourning of loved ones and past lives, as well as our connections to ancestry, spirituality and the regeneration of body and land.
This screening will be followed by a live event. A recording and transcript of this event which will be made available to Online audiences the following day.
Monday 26th June
Screening: Curatorial Commission Begana
In-Person: 19:00 - 21:00 | Split rooms
Red Lecture Theatre (CC/BSL) and Cairns Lecture Theatre (AD)
Online: In your own time, in your chosen space
For the first time, Fringe of Colour Films has invited a guest curator to programme a special event as part of the festival. Our 2023 commissioned curator is Neha Apsara, a film programmer based in Glasgow, focusing on programming stories full of joy, drama and hidden histories centred around the queer and diasporic South Asian experience.
This curated programme, Begana, features two films from the Queer South Asian and Indo-Caribbean archive, which explore themes and conversations that were far ahead of their time. The first, a portrait of Indian lesbian poet and writer Suniti Bamjoshi, by Pratibha Parmar (Flesh and Paper) and the second, a pivotal, pioneering work about the female, lesbian Indo-Caribbean perspective in exile by filmmaker Michelle Mohabeer (Coconut/Cane & Cutlass).
This event will also include a sound piece with a queer Shayari (urdu poetry) reading. More Info Here.
Tuesday 27th June
Author Event - Fugitive Feminism
Online: 13:00 - 14:00 | Live stream with BSL and Captioning
Author and Professor Akwugo Emejulu will be joining us for a special Online lunchtime event, to talk about her latest book Fugitive Feminism, “a call for the collective process of speculative dialogue and a bold new model for action.” Chaired by Fringe of Colour Films Co-Director Jess Brough.
Akwugo Emejulu is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick. Her research interests include the political sociology of race, class and gender and women of colour's grassroots activism in Europe and the United States. She is the author of several books including Precarious Solidarities (Manchester University Press, 2025), Fugitive Feminism (Silver Press, 2022) and Minority Women and Austerity: Survival and Resistance in France and Britain (Policy Press, 2017). She is co-editor of To Exist is to Resist: Black Feminism in Europe (Pluto Press, 2019).
Poetry Propagation
In-Person: 18:00 - 20:00 | The Gallery Bar
Online: Recording and transcript available following day
A festival in Edinburgh without poetry would be like a tree with no leaves. Join us for an evening of poetry in The Gallery Bar, with Edinburgh's Makar Hannah Lavery, Marjorie Lofti, Shasta Hanif Ali, Clementine E. Burnley, Andrés N. Ordorica and the Scottish BPOC Writers Network. Poems will speak to the process of propagation in plant life, with parent poems branching off into new words, ideas and performances.
Screening: Seeds
In-Person: 20:15 - 21:30 | Split rooms
Red Lecture Theatre (CC/BSL) and Cairns Lecture Theatre (AD)
Online: In your own time, in your chosen space
Screening the films in the Seeds Strand.
Seeds mark a beginning. The seed of an idea or thought planted in the mind, the seeds of a new relationship or the seeds of a diaspora sewn across the world. But the moment for growth is not always instantly or immediately grasped; it may take time and care by multiple hands across lifetimes and generations. The films and the filmmakers of Seeds speak to the notion of exciting beginnings and potential, something important and something beautiful is coming - just wait.
Wednesday 28th June
Lighthouse Counter Social
In-Person: 18:30 - 20:00 | Gallery Bar
Like chatting books and ideas, but not into book clubs? Want to meet folk interested in exploring the same worlds as you but not sure where to find them? Counter Socials, run by Lighthouse - Edinburgh’s Radical Bookshop - are the not-a-book-club bookshop run social that's just the thing for you!
This month’s Counter Social is a collaboration between Lighthouse and Fringe of Colour Films. More Info Here.
Screening: Rooted + Filmmaker Q&A
In-Person: 20:15 - 22:00 | Split rooms
Red Lecture Theatre (CC/BSL) and Cairns Lecture Theatre (AD)
Online: In your own time, in your chosen space
Screening the films in the Rooted Strand.
It is from the roots, nourished by the soil, that the plant will grow. To be rooted, is to deeply and firmly position yourself in the world. To be rooted is to be resilient against forces that may attempt to shake you. The films in Rooted show us that roots are not solitary, and can be manifested through deep connection, sensitivity and solidarity.
This screening will be followed by a live event. A recording and transcript of this event which will be made available to Online audiences the following day.
Thursday 29th June
Screening: Artist Commission Black Gold + Filmmaker Q&A
In-Person: 19:00 - 19:45 | Split rooms
Main Hall (CC/BSL) and Cairns Lecture Theatre (AD)
Online: In your own time, in your chosen space
Fringe of Colour commissioned multidisciplinary artist Ashanti Harris to create a new film for the festival, which led to a poetic study of pressure and the colonial extraction imposed on Guyana. Black Gold will be premiering at Fringe of Colour Films.
Moving through layers of thoughts, memories, visions and histories, Ashanti Harris’ filmic poem is a stream of consciousness of movements and sounds.
After the screening, Harris will be appearing in-conversation to talk about making work for the festival. She’ll reflect on the creation of her poetic procession to the centre of the ocean, art creation from places of pressure and intensity, and her own processes as a multidisciplinary diasporic artist.
This screening will be followed by a live event. A recording and transcript of this event will be made available to Online audiences the following day.
To attend this event, you must book (Free with an In-Person Pass)
Closing Night Party
In-Person: 21:00 - 00:00 | Dissection Room
Online: Tune in with EHFM
After an inspiring week of films and events, we invite you to join us to celebrate the end of Fringe of Colour Films 2023 with a Thursday night party in Summerhall's Dissection Room. With DJ sets from ria andrews and Junglehussi, this will be a night you don’t want to miss!
Online audiences will be able to dance the night away over the EHFM airwaves, with the radio station playing the full DJ sets throughout the night.
To attend this event, you must book (Free with an In-Person Pass)
Fruits
The bearing of fruit is often the most celebrated stage in a plant’s life-cycle. But fruits cannot be without each and every one of the other stages. The fruits of our festival are a series of events which have grown out of the themes and ideas expressed in our Soil, Seeds, Rooted, Nourish, Symbiosis and Pollination strands. There is at least one Fruits event every day of the festival, offering an opportunity to come together and a reminder that without planting and nurturing there are no fruits, and without you, there is no festival.