Jarman Award 2025 
Screening and Q&A with Arwa Aburawa & Turab Shah

Discover the exceptional work within the world of artists’ filmmaking in the UK, with a presentation of this year’s shortlist for the Film London Jarman Award, which comes with a £10,000 prize.  

Shortlisted artists Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah will join us for a screening of their work I Carry It With Me Everywhere, followed by an in-conversation with artist and writer Anna Maria Nabirye.

After a short break, works by the other five shortlisted artists Karimah Ashadu, Onyeka Igwe, Morgan Quaintance, George Finlay Ramsay and Hope Strickland will be presented.

Films in the Jarman Award Touring Programme 2025

Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah, I Carry It With Me Everywhere (2022), 19 mins

Karimah Ashadu, Machine Boys (2024), 8 mins

George Finlay Ramsay, Nursted, from the sleep side (2023), 13 mins

Onyeka Igwe, The Miracle on George Green (2022), 12 mins

Morgan Quaintance, Repetitions (2022), 24 mins

Hope Strickland, a river holds a perfect memory (2024), 17 mins

Event in partnership with Devonshire Collective.

Informed by interviews with first-generation migrants living in London, Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah’s I Carry It With Me Everywhere (2022) looks at the timeless search for home and belonging amongst an environment of displacement.

In Machine Boys (2024), Karimah Ashadu enters the underground community of motorbike taxi drivers, a forbidden practice in Lagos, and delivers a visceral portrait of masculinity and precarious labour in Nigeria’s patriarchal culture.

Elsewhere Onyeka Igwe’s archival collage film The Miracle on George Green (2022) presents a picture of the protests and collective resistance to the building of the M11 link road in Hackney, expanding out to consider global histories of protest.

Hope Strickland’s a river holds a perfect memory (2024) meanders gently across waterways in Jamaica, from a leisurely raft on the Martha Brae River to a night-time boat trip in Falmouth’s bioluminescent Lagoon. Shifting focus to the impact of industry on the waters of northern England, the film uses water to explore the entanglement of these supposedly disparate communities.

Morgan Quaintance’s Repetitions (2022) dissects formal elements of film in a heightened sequence of flickering images and sound loops which speak to social histories of industrial and physical labour.

Shot in a 16th Century manor house in the South Downs, George Finlay Ramsay’s 16mm film Nursted, from the sleep side (2023) takes us through the dark corridors and dusty shelves of the former home of two bohemian artists, reflecting on its history as it falls into disrepair and the fading memories of its inhabitants.

Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah are an artist duo based in London. Their work is focused on gathering people together to talk, to learn and to create films. Works by Aburawa and Shah have been exhibited at LUX, Humber Street Gallery, Phillida Reid Gallery and as part of the Brent Biennial in 2022. Festival screenings have included CPH:DOX, Dokufest, London Short Film Festival (awarded Best Short Documentary in 2025) and Blackstar (awarded Best Short Documentary in 2024). Screenings of their work have taken place at Camden Arts Centre (2023), Serpentine Galleries (2023), BAFTA, Mosaic Rooms (2024), Nottingham Contemporary, Framer Framed and at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C (2024).

Anna Maria is an interdisciplinary artist & writer working across visual arts, social practice, theatre, photography, community and film. Recently awarded the Peter Marlow Foundation Creative Residency Scholarship, Anna Maria's current projects include The Funnest Room in the House, exploring Black British kitchens as portals to ancestral homelands (Towner Eastbourne, S.A.W.N, The Albany & The Whitechapel Gallery); dance show A’N’D with Darragh O’Leary (White Rock Theatre, Battersea Arts Centre & South East Dance) and a book about Up In Arms with Annie Saunders (an Artsadmin project, originally commissioned by De La Warr Pavilion (2023)). Other collaborative works include Everything For Everyone And Nothing For Us (Hayward Gallery) & Deep State (Film and Video Umbrella - Jarman Award nominated) with Mirza and Butler. 

Anna Maria's extensive actor credits include National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, The Almeida, BBC 1 & 2, Netflix and Film4. She is Co-Founding Co-Director of the space Afri-Co-Lab. Without joy there can be no revolution.

Devonshire Collective is a cultural and community organisation operating across a network of ex-retail sites in the Devonshire West ward, Eastbourne – a vibrant area with a long-standing community. Volta Artists’ Moving Image is Devonshire Collective's newly established forum for artists, researchers and programmers working with the moving image and experimental film/video along and around the UK’s south-east coast.

Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network (FLAMIN) supports London-based artists working in moving image, working in partnership to deliver a comprehensive programme including production award schemes, regular screenings, talks and events, as well as the prestigious annual Film London Jarman Award.

We have a budget available to make this event as accessible as possible – this can include further interpretation services or other access arrangements we can meet to enable you to participate. If you require access arrangements, please email programme@townereastbourne.org.uk two weeks before the event date so that we can book a service if needed.