8:00 PM · Genesis Cinema, Mile End
Pressure Cooker (Opening Film)
Dhaka is a pressure cooker for women, and four of them are about to let off steam.
Programme
The 2026 programme
For its 9th edition the festival turned its lens on identity: what it means to be Bengali today, in London, in Dhaka, in Kolkata and everywhere in between.
This was our 2026 programme.
The 2027 programme will be published in early 2027.
Day 1 · Wednesday 22 April
Red carpet reception and opening night
Day 2 · Thursday 23 April
Chittrangada: Queer Shorts, with contextual commentary by Dr Rohit K. Dasgupta (LSE)
2:00 PM · BLOC Cinema, Queen Mary University
Jasmine That Blooms in Autumn
Love blossoms between two elderly women at an old age home while the spectre of patriarchy looms large overhead.
2:15 PM · BLOC Cinema, Queen Mary University
Crossing the Desert
A queer South Asian American woman forces a confrontation with her mother, and with everything left unsaid between them.
3:00 PM · BLOC Cinema, Queen Mary University
Nirvana
Three factory workers search for inner peace in a world that has forgotten how to listen.
5:00 PM · BLOC Cinema, Queen Mary University
Pinjar (The Cage)
A bird-catcher, a child, and three lives ensnared, cages come in many forms.
Day 3 · Friday 24 April
12:00 PM · BLOC Cinema, Queen Mary University
Silence of the Womb (No'mas No'din Ontahin)
She believes she is pregnant. The world believes she isn't. Both may be right.
3:00 PM · BLOC Cinema, Queen Mary University
The Exile
In 1960s Bengal, a man enters the forest to grieve his wife, and finds something waiting for him.
Day 4 · Saturday 25 April
Sreemati: honouring the legacy of Kanan Devi and Sreemati Pictures
12:00 PM · BLOC Cinema, Queen Mary University
7th Cycle
A student film that transcends its origins, fantasy, drama, and family across the cycles of life.
12:11 PM · BLOC Cinema, Queen Mary University
What Will People Say? (Log Kya Kahenge)
The loudest silences are the ones we keep for other people.
2:45 PM · BLOC Cinema, Queen Mary University
Sultana's Dream
What if the dangerous ones were the ones kept indoors?
5:00 PM · BLOC Cinema, Queen Mary University
Utshob (উৎসব / Festival)
A miserly man is visited by ghosts. Not to haunt him, to save him.
Day 5 · Sunday 26 April
Closing ceremony
11:00 AM · BLOC Cinema, Queen Mary University
London Boys
Behind the bikes, the brotherhood, and the bravado, men trying to find where they belong.
3:00 PM · Metro Cinema, Harrow
Devi Chowdhurani (Closing Film)
Cast out, taken in, and forged into a legend, Bengal's first female freedom fighter.