Chronic Youth Film Festival 2025
Against All Odds
Chronic Youth Film Festival 2025 presents Against All Odds: Resilience, community, and memory on screen.
For its tenth anniversary, this year’s Chronic Youth Film Festival sets out to celebrate the many faces of resilience and the power of collective agency across communities in different corners of the world. Featuring exclusive previews, engrossing documentaries, and an evocative shorts programme, this season showcases the journeys of a multitude of characters, reclaiming their narratives and shaping hopeful legacies for the future.
Programme Notes
This year’s festival will open with the UK premiere of José María Cabral’s Tiger, a powerful coming-of-age feature examining a teenager’s act of defiance towards machismo culture in the Dominican Republic.
To follow will be a screening of short film Apostles of Cinema and Suhaib Gasmelbari’s Talking About Trees, both portraying the playful journeys of East African film workers striving to broaden access to cinema in their communities while questioning the very meaning of cinematic heritage and legacy.
Closing Saturday will be an exclusive preview of Neo Sora’s debut fiction feature Happyend. Pulsating to the beat of techno music and earthquake warnings, the film follows a group of teenagers trying to find their political agency in a dystopian Japan.
The Sunday programme will open with Sarah Maldoror’s Dessert for Constance, a heartfelt exploration of migration and community featuring two Senegalese street sweepers in 70s Paris who compete in a cooking show to raise money for a friend.
This will be followed by a shorts programme showcasing award-winning and emerging filmmakers reconceptualising absence as a form of agency through archival footage, animation, and digital film.
The festival will close with a preview of Jazmin Jones’ documentary Seeking Mavis Beacon, led by two unconventional investigators looking for the elusive woman behind the titular character from the popular 80s typing game.
