Roundhouse Film Fund

Roundhouse is proud to release seven Roundhouse Film Fund supported films as part of Roundhouse Three Sixty Festival 2026.

These seven innovative and bold films ask vital questions about the world we live in and the issues affecting young people today. Watch them online on this page!

• The People Closest to Heaven by Swek Rai
• Crossroads – Muhammed Bittaye
• Forgive me Father – Grac Talbot
• Laundry List – Alison Foyle
• Cocoon – Issy Franklin
• Magwit La Mofwase – Ella Mayamothi
• If This Were Purgatory – Honey Birch

About Roundhouse Film Fund

Roundhouse Film Fund is part of the Roundhouse’s vibrant youth programme, which engages with over 11,000 young creatives each year. Since 2021, Roundhouse has worked with law firm Wiggin LLP to significantly advance the Roundhouse Film Fund. As its lead supporter, Wiggin leverages its expertise in media, technology and IP to strengthen and deepen the programme’s support.

The Film Fund empowers emerging filmmakers to create short films that explore social and political issues from their unique perspectives.

Through a cash award and mentoring throughout the entire production process, the Film Fund empowers emerging filmmakers to create calling card films for early career writer-directors from underrepresented backgrounds.

The programme also works with kit house VMI to provide equipment and technical support to the filmmakers’ crews and works with Bucks Music Group to match each filmmaker with a composer to score their films.

The films being released today were made in 2024 and have since been supported by Roundhouse to enter the global film festival circuit, resulting in screenings at Future Film Fest, BFI Flare, Woman X and Bradford International amoungst others.

The People Closest To Heaven is a short documentary that shines a spotlight on British-Nepali youth, embracing and reclaiming their heritage through their prospective creative industries. Overcoming discrimination and navigating dual identities, they strive to bridge cultures and inspire others to understand and celebrate the richness of Nepali history and culture in today’s world.

Swek is a 21-year-old Nepali-British writer, director, and production designer. This project marks their directorial debut in the documentary genre, following their recent graduation from Ravensbourne University with a BA in Digital Film Production. With a passion for blending personal cultural heritage with cinematic expression. Swek has worked with producer Ellie Taylor Mills on several projects, including a music video for indie-rap artist QUVN, which garnered nominations at the London Music Video Festival and 01 NFT Digital Arts Film Festival.

A grieving artist grappling with guilt and revenge after witnessing his best friend’s death, is greeted by an unexpected presence that forces him to consider his options for the future.

Muhammed Bittaye is a writer & Director who’s dedicated to making films that authentically reflect the complexities of the human experience and address social issues mostly centered around Africans. Bittaye attended film school with a scholarship from cinematographer Fabian Wagner, where he made several shorts such as BFI runner up horror competition – Revenant (2021), Winner of minute shorts competition –  5 senses of black (2021), Heritage (2022), Asylum (2024), and now BFI short –  Canvas of Roots (2024). Bittaye is looking to work in Film & TV as a writer and director producing content that represents black african muslims.

Forgive Me, Father intertwines the stories of two places, connected by a protagonist carrying the weight of their own queerness and guilt. In the confined spaces of a school bathroom and a club toilet, they confront memories of a first love and the intrigue of a stranger. Each place exists because of the other, a nightmare and a hopeful dream, leaving the audience to question what is real.

Grac is a filmmaker with a background in animation, takes on their debut role as director with this live-action short. Known for exploring the fluidity of mixed media, Grac uses this project to blend forms and enhance a deeply personal story arc. “Forgive Me, Father” marks their first venture into live-action, where animation and reality merge to reflect the complexities of identity and queerness.

A British social realism film that delves into the raw and unflinching dynamics between a mother battling physical and mental health challenges and her daughter, torn between frustration and a deep sense of duty as her caregiver.

Alison Foyle is an emerging filmmaker and director, making her debut with the short film Laundry List. A passionate storyteller, Alison is dedicated to shedding light on social issues and amplifying the voices of mavericks and marginalized communities. Through her work, Alison strives to create films that challenge societal norms, spark conversations, and inspire change. Laundry List is just the beginning of her journey as a filmmaker, and she hopes to continue using her craft to highlight important issues and celebrate the resilience of the human spirit.

It’s Spring. The light is falling in. Erin sets out on a jog, but headrushed and high off hunger pains, the beauty of the landscape soon shifts into something else entirely. Tree trunks taunt her, flashes of her reflection haunt her and she can’t keep up with the breeze. Desperate to escape her body, she spirals deep into the embrace of the cocoon.

Issy Franklin is a writer & director from the South West, now based in London, interested in inventive approaches to political and feminist filmmaking. At 17, their first short TRIGGER BANG was commissioned through BBC New Creatives, produced by Calling The Shots and BBC Arts. They went on to develop a second short with Little by Little Films through the BFI’s New Voices program, and took part in the Edinburgh TV Festival’s talent scheme The Network. Issy currently works in-house as Development Editor Roughcut Television.

This Experimental short follows a Shekere coming to life and slowly taking over a
congregation with the power of music and dance. Exploring the relationship between spirituality and dance, informed by Mayamothi’s Guadeloupean heritage, she invites us into a visual exploration of movement and what it means to capture the spirit, particularly in the context of the UK.

Ella Mayamothi Sommeil is a British based photographer and director. The foundations of her practice are informed by her Bangladeshi and Guadeloupean heritage; themes of displacement and longing are firmly rooted in her work.

Named after her maternal Grandmother, she continues the work of the griots in her family. Through her work, she extends an invitation to audiences, encouraging them to join her in an insightful exploration and critical examination of colonialist notions surrounding blackness.
Using archives, books, cameras and textiles, her world building work is an ode to the resistance and resilience of her community.

Gossip, identity, politics, and romance. Following a group of friends to a club, this film waits with them, eavesdropping on the voice of a queer club queue. Exploring the idea that queer people, by nature of being marginalised, exist on the borders, this docufiction is a tentative invitation to the fantasy of the London queer club scene. It poses the queue as a liminal space where queerness is visible and vulnerable to the eyes of the general public.

Honey Birch (they/them) is a multimedia storyteller. With an interest in the blurred borders between imagined lives and reality, their work spans moving image, curation, 3D design, poetry, and creative facilitation. With a research based practice, they often explore their own intersectional identity as a British, queer, Chinese adoptee. They are currently exhibiting their first solo exhibition ‘Here, Somewhere’ at Dorich House Museum, funded by the Museum of London’s Diversity Matters grant, exploring the speculative lavender marriage of Dora Gordine and Richard Hare (2024).