Welcome Statement
The 2025 RAI FILM Festival marks the 40th anniversary of the unique celebration of anthropology and filmmaking.
Organised by the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) — the world’s longest-established scholarly association dedicated to the advancement of anthropology — since 1985, the festival has created a vital space where cinema, academia, and public dialogue intersect.
At a time of growing complexity and division, anthropology — as the study of the human condition — represents an ever more crucial lens to understand how we live, struggle, imagine, and relate to one another. As a non-profit and self-governing charity, the RAI proudly hosts this festival as a platform for independent filmmaking, critical thought, and collective reflection.
This year’s curatorial theme — Looking Back, Looking Forward — takes on renewed significance. First used for the festival in 2005, the theme returns at a moment of continuity and change. It invites us to reflect on the rich legacy of visual anthropology and documentary film, as well as the evolving possibilities of the discipline today. We look to the past with critical insight, while turning toward the future with curiosity and urgency. How are contemporary filmmakers reworking narratives, innovating cinematic language, and revisiting archives to respond to the complexities of the present? Two decades on, we ask again: where have we come from — and where are we going next?
The 2025 programme features over 90 films from 36 countries, spanning a broad spectrum — from observational documentary and essay film to radical experimentations and community-rooted collaborations. We are proud to host international and UK premieres, filmmaker Q&As, and in-depth discussions, all contributing to a rich, diverse, and thought-provoking experience. In addition to our seven competition awards, we present four special strands that delve into core thematic concerns.
The Lifetime Achievement Award is presented to Melissa Llewelyn-Davies (1945–2025) — a pioneering feminist anthropologist and filmmaker who has left behind an extraordinary legacy that continues to shape the fields of ethnographic film and visual anthropology. Melissa’s groundbreaking films on the Maasai (1974–1994) have become some of the most influential works in the history of ethnographic cinema, and her subsequent filmography extends far beyond East Africa, encompassing British hospitals, housing estates, and post-socialist Europe. This award recognises her vision and lifelong commitment to ethnographic filmmaking. A tribute will include the screening of a special film and a panel discussion on her legacy with selected clips from across her body of work.
We are equally excited to announce that this year’s opening film and President’s Award recipient is God Is a Woman, directed by Andrés Peyrot and produced by Duiren Wagua — screening as a UK premiere following its acclaimed debut at the Venice Film Festival. This poignant, multi-layered documentary follows the journey of the indigenous Kuna community in Panama as they recover a lost 1970s film made about them, and unfolds into a powerful meditation on cultural memory and the right of indigenous peoples to reclaim their image.
Festival screenings will take place across two of Bristol’s most vibrant cultural venues — Watershed and Arnolfini — and the programme is designed to create space for dialogue between filmmakers, scholars, students, film lovers, and local communities, as well as across disciplines and borders.
Whether attending one screening or immersing yourself in the full five days, we invite you to be part of this celebration of cinema and anthropology. And if you can’t join us in person, or want to revisit what moved you, the festival continues online from 16 June to 16 July. This extended digital programme will be available worldwide, allowing you to catch up on films you missed in the cinema or take part from wherever you are.
We can’t wait to welcome you!
Stay tuned for the full programme announcement on 22 May!