LDNDOCS has published the programme for its inaugural Documentary Showcase, running November 21-23 at the Curzon Bloomsbury Cinema in London. “The 2025 showcase will reflect on how memory and time shape our relationships and the lasting impact they leave on us,” write organisers.
“The LDNDOCS mission is simple: to bring extraordinary stories to the big screen, because we believe the future of cinema is cinema. Our goal is to help the documentary form thrive, building audiences one screening at a time,” organisers add.
Ten new documentary features and one short film programme will be presented during the launch event, with the majority of screenings followed by a post-screening Q&A with attending directors, producers, and special guests.
The showcase will officially open with Come See Me In The Good Light, Ryan White’s love story about poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley as they face an incurable cancer diagnosis, transforming their experience into a moving celebration of resilience. Winner of several festival audience awards, including the prestigious Festival Favourite Award at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, the film will be released on Apple TV on November 14.
Other notable titles include a special ‘sneak preview’ screening of King Hamlet, Elvira Lind’s intimate exploration of her husband, actor Oscar Isaac, as he takes on the iconic role of Shakespeare’s Danish prince at NYC’s Public Theatre; and Brittany Shyne’s lauded debut Seeds, the Sundance award-winning, Critics Choice-nominated poetic portrait of Black generational farmers in the American South.
National Geographic Documentary Films’ The Tale Of Silyan, winner of the Best Film in the Cinema and Arts Award at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, and the latest film from Oscar-nominated ‘Honeyland’ director Tamara Kotevska, is about the unlikely and beautiful bond between man and animal.
In Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost, Ben Stiller tells the story of his parents, comedy icons Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. Ben Stiller will be in attendance for a special Q&A. Other notable highlights from recent festivals include Richard Ladkani’s powerful Yanuni and Cody Sheehy’s The Last Dive.
Robb Moss will present The Bend In The River, the third instalment in a trilogy of films begun in 1978, and the culmination of one of the most ambitious and intimate longitudinal film projects.
Similarly, Victoria Hely-Hutchinson will screen her new film, Vacances, a project shot over the course of a decade with her unforgettable bohemian ‘granny’ in Provence.
In Cinema Kawakeb, Mahmoud Al Massad documents the final days of a crumbling cinema in Jordan, in a quiet reflection on loss, memory, and resilience amid larger collapse.
The shorts program “highlights Palestinian filmmakers creatively engaging with archival footage and images from Palestine to touch on themes including the role of image-making, surveillance, and identity, presenting a visceral portrait of Palestinian life,” organisers write.
LDNDOCS founder Ben Fowlie, also founder of the Camden Intl Film Festival (US), comments: “LDNDOCS was designed to build greater access to bold, ambitious nonfiction filmmaking in a city that continues to be a vital centre for the global creative documentary community. It’s exciting to be helping to expand the awareness of the artists and stories pushing the form forward. For a city of nine million, London still feels intimate, and we intended to curate a programme and create an experience that felt similarly.”
2025 PROGRAMME:
- THE BEND IN THE RIVER Directed by Robb Moss | USA | 2025 | 82 min. Following and filming friends for nearly fifty-years, The Bend in the River is an exploration of the inexorable flow of aging and the unfinished project of living.
- CINEMA KAWAKEB Directed by Mahmoud Al Massad | Jordan, Qatar | 2025 | 79 min. A filmmaker documents the final days of a crumbling cinema in Jordan, revealing personal stories during regional upheaval, and a quiet reflection on loss, memory, and resilience amid larger collapses.
- COME SEE ME IN THE GOOD LIGHT Directed by Ryan White | USA | 2025 |104 min. A poignant and unexpectedly funny love story about poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley facing an incurable cancer diagnosis with joy, wit and an unshakable partnership. Through laughter and unwavering love, they transform pain into purpose, and mortality into a moving celebration of resilience.
- KING HAMLET (Sneak Preview Screening) Directed by Elvira Lind | USA, Denmark | 2025 | 89 min. Actor Oscar Isaac takes on the iconic role of Shakespeare’s Danish prince in an intimate look at his preparation and performance at NYC’s Public Theatre.
- THE LAST DIVE Directed by Cody Sheehy | USA | 2025 | 88 min. Terry Kennedy has lived several colourful lives, including a stint as a Hell’s Angel – but, most memorably, as the unlikely friend to a giant manta ray named Willy. Now in his 80s, Terry mounts one last diving expedition to a remote island in search of his long-lost friend.
- SEEDS Directed by Brittany Shyne | USA | 2025 | 98 min. Using lyrical black-and-white imagery, Shyne’s stunning directorial debut is a poetic and poignant portrait of Black generational farmers in the American South, revealing the fragility of legacy and the significance of owning land.
- STILLER & MEARA: NOTHING IS LOST Directed by Ben Stiller | USA | 2025 | 98 min. Ben Stiller tells the story of his parents—comedy icons Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara—exploring their impact on popular culture and at home, where the lines between creativity, family, life, and art often blurred.
- THE TALE OF SILYAN Directed by Tamara Kotevska | North Macedonia | 2025 | 81 min. Oscar-nominated director Tamara Kotevska (Honeyland) tells the story of a farmer’s relationship to a white stork, interwoven with the folk tales of North Macedonia.
- VACANCES Directed by Victoria Hely-Hutchinson | France | 2025 | 82 min. An uninhibited Austrian countess,—a.k.a. ‘Granny’—holds court poolside in the South of France. Over ten summers, she offers up unsolicited advice on monogamy, mortality and motherhood while attended by her nubile grandchildren as they bloom into adulthood.
- YANUNI Directed by Richard Ladkani | Austria, Brazil, Canada, Germany | 2025 | 112 min. Indigenous chief Juma Xipaia fights to protect tribal lands despite assassination attempts. Her struggle intensifies after learning she’s pregnant, while her husband, Special Forces ranger Hugo Loss, stands by her side.
PALESTINE THROUGH ARCHIVE – A SHORTS PROGRAM
A collection of short documentary films from Palestinian filmmakers who are creatively engaging with archival footage and images from Palestine to touch on themes including the role of image-making, surveillance, and identity, presenting a visceral portrait of Palestinian life.
- A NIGHT WE HELD BETWEEN Directed by Noor Abed | Palestine | 2024 | 30 min. A Night We Held Between takes the ancient tale of the Minoan Labyrinth as historical inspiration, connecting mythology to the present socio-political reality in Palestine.
- I SIGNED THE PETITION Directed by Mahid Fleifel | United Kingdom, Germany | 2018 | 11 min. Immediately after a Palestinian man signs an online petition, he is thrown into a panic-inducing spiral of self-doubt.
- PALENCORECORE Directed by Dana Dawud | 2024 | Palestine | 6 min. A hypnotic fusion of dance, archival footage, and internet-circulated videos that collapse past and present into a visceral portrait of Palestinian life.
- THE FLOWERS STAND SILENTLY, WHISPERING. Directed by Theo Panagopoulos | Palestine, UK | 2024 | 17 min. When a Palestinian filmmaker based in Scotland unearths a rarely-seen Scottish film archive of Palestinian wild flowers, he decides to reclaim the footage.
- UNDR Directed by Kamal Aljafari | Palestine, Germany | 2024 | 15 min. A poignant found-footage essay film about an otherworldly landscape charged with history and potential that has become an eerie site of surveillance and incursion.
