The programme for the fifteen annual Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival has been announced. Running from 1 – 4 May 2025 in Hawick in the Scottish Borders, the programme brings together work by international and local artists working in the mediums of film and music.
Among the highlights of the 2025 festival is a special commission from 2012 Turner Prize nominee, Luke Fowler and 2014 Max Mara prize winner, Corin Sworn, responding to the legacy of textile designers Bernat and Margaret Klein and their Borders home, the Peter Worsley designed modernist masterpiece, near Selkirk. Another special commission to be showcased is a new 16mm film by Maybelle Peters exploring legacies of Scottish colonialism in Guiana.
Running throughout the 2025 Festival will be a strand of Venezuelan film featuring classics such as Araya, Margot Benacerraf's portrait of labour and salt mines (including never before seen offcuts); a newly subtitled version of Carlos Oteyza’s 1980s documentary Mayami Nuestro and work by contemporary artists Adriana Vila Guevara and Esperanza Mayobre. The focus is presented in association with the University of Edinburgh and US Ivy League college, Cornell.
The exhibition programme, screening in venues near to the Tower Mill, will feature a range of new and existing work by artists working in the medium of film including The Diary of a Sky by 2019 joint Turner Prize winner, Lawrence Abu Hamda; UK premiere of 16mm exhibition by Portuguese artist Mónica Baptista; How Much Air Lungs Can Hold (the 2024 Margaret Tait Commission) by Isabel Barfod and To Make Our (Work) Song by Japanese artist Natsumi Sakamoto. Taken together, the exhibitions examine and interrogate the political question of how we perceive and conceptualise space: historically, socially, institutionally.
The 2025 Festival will open with a new Alchemy-produced feature Rum an Milk by South of Scotland-based artist, Mark Lyken inspired by the historic Hawick Common Riding and the town-wide labour that make it happen each year.
Other initiatives by locally-based artists and groups include the launch a six track debut EP by Hawick-based trad musician and Alchemy Musician in Residence, Miwa Nagato-Apthorp - whose most recent performances include an appearance at the 2025 Celtic Connections - and Arcade Machine, an interactive game co-designed by Alchemy Film & Arts and Borders Additional Needs Group, which explores participants' lived experience of neurodiversity.
Earlier this year, recognising the importance of Alchemy Film and Arts both in Borders and on the world stage, the organisation was successful in its bid for Multi-Year funding from Creative Scotland for 2025-2028. The almost £900K of support will enable them to continue their work with locally based filmmakers and groups as well as presenting the annual international experimental film festival.
Sambrooke Scott, Head of Audience Development at Screen Scotland said: “Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival is a rare gem—an intimate, welcoming festival that nurtures bold artistic voices from around the world. It creates a unique and welcoming community where filmmakers, artists and audiences connect, challenge boundaries, and celebrate the moving image in an atmosphere of warmth, collaboration, curiosity, and creativity. Screen Scotland is a proud supporter of the annual festival and the creative work it nurtures in Hawick year-round.”
The full programme can be found on the Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival website.
More information
Image credit: Header image of Musician Miwa Nagato-Apthorp courtesy of Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival