Screening and Q&A: Film London Jarman Award 2025 with Karimah Ashadu

Discover the incredibly diverse landscape of artists’ filmmaking in the UK through a special screening of works shortlisted for this year’s Film London Jarman Award. This event is hosted by Watershed and presented in partnership with Spike Island.

This year’s shortlisted artists are Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah, Karimah Ashadu, Onyeka Igwe, Morgan Quaintance, George Finlay Ramsay, and Hope Strickland.

The event includes a screening of the six shortlisted films, as well as a Q&A with Karimah Ashadu, who will discuss her film Machine Boys (2024), an intimate and visceral exploration of Lagos’s underground community of motorbike taxi drivers. Through this portrait of forbidden labour, Ashadu examines masculinity, risk, and survival within Nigeria’s patriarchal society.

FILM LONDON JARMAN AWARD

Inspired by visionary British filmmaker Derek Jarman, the Award recognises and supports artists working with the moving image. The shortlisted artists illustrate the spirit of inventiveness within moving image, highlighting the breadth of creativity and craftsmanship the medium has to offer, as well as its powerful ability to engage and provoke audiences.

The winner of the Film London Jarman Award will be announced on the 25 November. The Award comes with a £10,000 prize and is presented in partnership with the Whitechapel Gallery.The tour runs from 25 October to 14 December, in partnership with seven arts venues across the UK.