Watch the trailer for this year’s 225 Film Club festival now:
The 225 Film Club festival takes place in NFT3 at the BFI: 6pm, Friday 5 December 2025. There are still a few tickets available. Get yours here.
This year’s carefully curated programme of films tackle themes with grace combined with a gimlet eye, and often venturing into those “grey areas” described by Mylissa Fitzsimmons:
It’s not black and white, it’s a film about the gray areas and how we communicate while trying to navigate the nuances of intimacy,” Mylissa Fitzsimmons, writer/director I’m Not Sure
The stories themselves highlight a huge range of human experiences. 2025’s filmmakers have delved into topics as diverse as the power of women in Victorian spiritualism, families during war, ADHD… and a malevolent goose.
Mother Goose, directed by Joanna Vymeris, is already an award winner, with the film taking home Edinburgh International Film Festival’s Thelma Schoonmaker Prize for Short Filmmaking Excellence:
a modern day Grimm’s fairy-tale about grief, isolation… and a goose.”
Our 7th Edition programme includes the UK premiere of Fitzsimmons’s I’m Not Sure and the London premiere of Catherine Joy White’s Swim Sistas, which White describes as:
my love letter to water, to sisterhood and to resilience.”
Stephanie Paris’s unnerving Speak With the Dead takes us back to the 19th century and the spiritualist movement sweeping the USA, asking pertinent questions about the role of young women in an industry that both needed and belittled them:
Speak With The Dead was inspired by the true story of the Fox Sisters and their travels throughout the 1850s as mediums” Stephanie Paris, writer/director, Speak With The Dead
Meanwhile Paranoia brings us back to the 21st century and the fears we still hold, and that often feel handed down to us:
Paranoia explores the ever-present anxiety of being a young woman in a big city, where every instinct flickers between real danger and imagined threat.” Alina Bichieva, writer/director, Paranoia
London holds a particular resonance for actress and filmmaker Letitia Wright in her debut as a director, Highway To The Moon:
Highway To The Moon started as my desire to write a love letter to young black boys all over the world. Especially young black boys in London, UK.” Letitia Wright, writer/director, Highway To The Moon
Morning is a heartfelt look at the aftermath of a tragedy:
This film is defined by its silence. Its purity comes from the relationship between sound and image, and it’s a piece I feel deeply aligned with.” Olivia Jane Middleton, writer/director, Morning
Two of the films force us to confront the horrors of war and the strength of families caught up in conflicts:
Ya Hanouni carries the ambition to show directly a glimpse of what war, massacre and genocide are,” Lyna Tadount and Sofian Chouaib, writers/directors, Ya Hanouni
While Ruth Hunduma’s film The Medallion follows her own mother’s harrowing experiences during the Ethiopian Red Terror genocide of the 1970s:
This film is my attempt to humanize the face of war, give back the voices of all those that are swept under the carpet or simply taxonomized as “collateral damage” at the hands of forces greater than themselves. This film is for the forgotten.” Ruth Hunduma, director, The Medallion
Milk follows a young mother searching for formula for her baby, and the judgement and fear that accompanies her.
I made Milk to explore an issue that creates deep conflict for women — another way our bodies are weaponised against us”. Naomi Waring, writer/director, Milk
Jen Lim looks at suicide and the guilt it leaves behind, as two women fight over who is best placed to give the eulogy:
Largely formed through improvisation, the film is an expression of how helplessness and guilt in the face of suicide loss can create an ugly battle of culpability.” Jen Lim, writer/director, My Grief Isn’t Grief Enough
There is animation in the form of Tortor Smith’s colourful Hot Mess, which expertly illuminates the pressures of living with ADHD; familiar to many and insightful for everyone else:
Hot Mess is a multi-layered exploration of what it is like to be diagnosed late with ADHD.” Tortor Smith, writer/director, Hot Mess
Bluff is about a young girl with sight impairment:
Bluff was in part inspired by co-writer Georgie’s own experience of visual impairment as a young girl.” Naomi Wright, director/co-writer & Georgie Wyatt, co-writer/associate director, Bluff
Hsieh Meng Han’s The Test is based on a true story:
The Test has a double meaning. It refers not only to the Life in the UK test but also to a test that all immigrants have gone through, are going through, and will continue to face: a test of enduring micro-aggressions.” Hsieh Meng Han, writer/director, The Test
Arena highlights similar issues, though this time in the film industry:
Arena was born out of my working experience in the film industry. It examines how systems of power operate between directors and actors, and how easily one’s autonomy can be compromised in the pursuit of aesthetic and artistic excellence.” Simin Zeng, writer/director, Arena
Return by Sophia Carr-Gomm is a moving account of grief and loneliness.
Since the passing of our lead actor, Peter Faulkner, Return carries an added poignancy. The film follows his physical and metaphorical journey, a shamanic passage through a landscape of grief, as he seeks to return to his beloved.” Sophia Carr-Gomm, director, Return
Finally, Bridge makes a very necessary plea for real-world connection:
We live in a world that makes it easy to feel disconnected, no matter how technologically connected we are. Bridge is a story of a chance encounter and the desire to be heard, to be vulnerable and honest.” Tara Aghdashloo, director, Bridge
Many of the themes running through this year’s films – identity and grief, loneliness and belonging – will ring true for many in the audience, but with, optimistically, the power of connection a call to all of us.
This year’s awards
Our Best Short Film UK and Best Short Film International award winners are chosen by an exceptional industry jury.
Returning this year is our Audience Award chosen exclusively by you the audience in the cinema on Friday 5 December. All the awards will be announced on Friday 12 December. This year sponsors of The Lioness award designed by Caroline Wheaton include Focus Canning, ArtCan, Tysers Live, Times Up UK.
225 Film Club is a member of BFI Film Audience Network and the Association of Independent Film Festivals
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