Four Artist Filmmakers Selected for the 2026 Jarman Award

Award: Film London Jarman Award

Organiser: Film London

Location: United Kingdom

Dates: 2026, with the winner announced in November

Film London has announced the shortlist for the 2026 Jarman Award, bringing together four artists whose moving-image practices expand the possibilities of contemporary filmmaking.

The shortlisted artists are Alia Syed, Ilona Sagar, Sadia Pineda Hameed and Rhea Storr. Their work addresses migration, memory, labour, identity, community and the social structures that shape everyday life.

Established in honour of the artist, filmmaker and writer Derek Jarman, the annual award has become one of the United Kingdom’s most respected recognitions for artists working with film and experimental moving image.

Four Distinctive Approaches to Moving Image

The 2026 shortlist reflects the breadth of contemporary artists’ filmmaking.

Although each artist works through a distinctive visual language, their practices share an interest in storytelling as a way of understanding personal experience alongside wider historical, political and social realities.

Archives, documentary material, oral histories and experimental techniques appear throughout the shortlisted work. Rather than following conventional cinematic structures, the artists use moving image to examine how experiences are recorded, remembered and transformed.

Their films invite audiences to consider not only what stories are told, but also how images, voices and cultural memories are preserved across generations.

Migration, Belonging and Family History

Questions of migration, displacement and belonging are central to the work of several shortlisted artists.

Sadia Pineda Hameed draws on family archives to explore her mother’s journey from the Philippines to Britain. Her work brings an intimate family history into conversation with wider questions about migration, memory and the meaning of home.

Through the use of personal material, Hameed considers how family histories are carried across places and generations, and how memories can be reconstructed through images and fragmented records.

Alia Syed has spent several decades examining diasporic experience through film, photography and oral testimony. Her work explores the relationship between geography, memory and imagination while challenging established narratives surrounding migration and cultural identity.

Although their approaches differ, both artists investigate how communities maintain stories, connections and forms of belonging across borders.

Researching Labour, Health and Bureaucracy

Ilona Sagar’s research-led practice examines the relationships between health, labour, architecture and bureaucracy.

Her selected project considers the consequences of asbestos-related illness and the administrative systems surrounding it. Through this subject, Sagar reveals the human experiences concealed behind official processes, medical records and institutional language.

The work draws attention to the way complex personal realities can be reduced to paperwork, procedures and statistics.

By combining research with experimental filmmaking, Sagar creates a space in which questions of public health, working conditions and institutional responsibility can be examined together.

Public Space and Black Cultural Expression

Rhea Storr’s practice considers representation, public space and Black cultural expression.

In work using footage of carnival celebrations, Storr removes the accompanying sound, transforming the way the images are experienced. Without the expected music and noise, viewers are encouraged to look more closely at bodies, movement, architecture and the surrounding environment.

The silence shifts attention away from carnival as spectacle and towards the conditions under which cultural traditions become visible.

Through this formal decision, Storr examines the relationship between community, performance and representation, while questioning how Black cultural life is framed and consumed within public space.

A Platform for Experimental Film

Over nearly two decades, the Jarman Award has established itself as an important platform for artists working beyond the conventions of mainstream cinema.

The prize recognises filmmakers who combine artistic experimentation with critical engagement, using moving image to explore social, political and cultural questions.

Many previous nominees and winners have gone on to receive significant international recognition, strengthening the award’s reputation as an important indicator of developments within contemporary artists’ film.

The 2026 shortlist continues this tradition by presenting artists whose work combines rigorous research, personal experience and formal experimentation.

Bringing the Shortlisted Works to New Audiences

Before the winner is announced in November, audiences across the United Kingdom will have opportunities to encounter the shortlisted artists’ work through a national touring programme.

Presentations are expected to take place at institutions including BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Nottingham Contemporary, Spike Island and the Barbican Centre.

The four artists will also be brought together in a dedicated exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery in London.

The exhibition will allow visitors to experience four different approaches to contemporary filmmaking within a shared setting, while considering the connections between their subjects and methods.

Looking Towards the Award

As the Jarman Award approaches its nineteenth year, the 2026 edition reaffirms the importance of experimental moving-image practice within contemporary art.

Through subjects including migration, labour, identity, public space and cultural memory, the shortlisted artists demonstrate how film can address complex experiences that are often overlooked by conventional forms of representation.

The national tour and Whitechapel Gallery exhibition will bring these practices to wider audiences before the winner is announced in November.

Together, the four shortlisted artists show how moving image can operate as a form of research, testimony and artistic experimentation, while creating new ways of understanding individual and collective histories.

Website

filmlondon.org.uk