Take One Action Film Festivals

🤩 👋 We’re BACK! Real Utopias will be coming to screens and community spaces near you this autumn, so mark your diaries: We’ll be hosting four weekends of in-person screenings, workshops and conversations in: 〰️ #Edinburgh (17-21 Sep) 〰️ #Glasgow (25-28 Sep) 〰️ #Inverness (10-12 Oct) 〰️ #Dundee (7-8 Nov) 👀 🎟️ Full programme and tickets available next week! Subscribe to our newsletter in the TOA website to get it before everyone else. We’re beyond excited to share our gorgeous poster for this year’s festivals, designed by the wonderful @maddielennoncantdraw (spoiler: she can). So grateful to get to collaborate with pals old and new: @filmhouse_edinburgh @grassmarketcommunity @emcalliance @gmacfilm @exhale.group @platformglasgow @scotsqueerfilm @living_rent @edencourttheatrecinema @highland.zine.bothy @dcadundee @lacdundee @hot_chocoltae_trust @matchbox_cineclub @theskinnymag With support from @screenscots & @filmhubscotland

In the wake of some of the bloodiest days in Gaza since October 2023, Take One Action reaffirms our commitment to the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel – alongside many of our peers, colleagues, and friends across the Scottish arts industry. As an organisation that works to harness the power of arts and storytelling for social justice and liberation for all, we reiterate the call of @artworkersforpalestinescotland that we, as art workers, have a crucial and ever more urgent responsibility to mobilise around PACBI and deepen our commitment to Palestinian liberation. Over 160 arts organisations in Scotland have endorsed PACBI, making it one of the PACBI hotspots of the world; let’s continue building this momentum and wielding our collective power. We will be attending @artworkersforpalestinescotland ’s PACBI Open Meeting on Thursday the 3rd of April, 6-8pm, online. We call on our fellow arts organisations – PACBI signatories or not – to join us there. The link to register for the meeting is in our bio 🔗 Now and forever for a Free Palestine!

At Take One Action, we are in deep grief, anger, and horror bearing witness to the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Every single life taken is one too many: an entire universe snuffed out, an entire universe of grief. It is dizzying to contend with the fact that calling for the bare minimum of a ceasefire – demanding an end to the unspeakably horrific killings, including over 4,000 children, ceaseless bombardment of hospitals and schools, collective punishment and starvation of 2.2 million human beings – is something we must do. And yet we are beyond enraged and disappointed at the institutions – from international governments to organisations across the arts – that are either actively fuelling genocide, or have chosen silence and complicity with it. This has to end. Every single hour in Palestine is more terrifying than the last. Here are some actions to take for those of us in Scotland – a non-exhaustive list. Please keep showing up at demos, keep sharing, keep learning, do not ever let your heart become numb to genocide. Do not let this momentum die down. Slide 2-3: @scottish_psc Call to Action: Write your MSPs, asking them to sign the Scottish Parliament motions to stop arming Israel and demand a ceasefire in Gaza. Slide 4-5: Check your MP's stance on ceasefire and tell them they will not be receiving your vote unless they are doing everything in their power to demand ceasefire. You can find the full list of signatories of the Early Day Motion easily online. Make sure your MP is one of them. Slide 6-7: Targeted boycott of HP, Coca-Cola, Israeli produce, and Puma. Boycott and divestment played a huge role in dismantling apartheid in South Africa; we need to focus our energies on effectively boycotting Israel. 🇵🇸🇵🇸 🇵🇸 Alongside the millions of people worldwide marching and shouting for a Free Palestine, we call upon all our friends, colleagues, partners, and every single one of us to demand #CeasefireNow! We want an end to the occupation of Palestine, an end to settler colonialism and empire everywhere. Free Palestine! 🇵🇸🕊️

Power Up! Want to explore how to tell stories about climate, community energy and collective power? Want to be inspired and energised by work already happening around community ownership of energy? Then join us on 10 June in Edinburgh as part of The Great Big Green Week to think creatively about how we take power into our own hands!

In commemoration of the Nakba, we're highlighting five films, and five upcoming events to attend. Each film takes a different route into charting the experience of Palestinian displacement. They are ruminations on home, place, and diaspora, bearing witness to 78 years of the Nakba and the subsequent atrocities of the Israeli apartheid state. Today echoes the continued call for justice, self-determination, and right-to-return for all Palestinian people. Head to the link in our bio to watch the films. Upcoming events to attend: 🇵🇸 15 May | 4-6pm | Charteris Land, Edinburgh | FILM SCREENING | ‘A Stone’s Throw (2024, dir. Razan al Salah) 🇵🇸 16 May | 1pm | Foot of the Mound, Edinburgh | PROTEST | Nakba Day Demo (Gaza Genocide Emergency Committee Edinburgh) 🇵🇸 23 May | Glasgow | Time and location TBA | PROTEST | Scottish National Demo (Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign) 🇵🇸 23 May | 10.30am-12.30pm | Creative Central @ Central Library, Dundee | WORKSHOP | Embroidery in Solidarity with Palestine 🇵🇸 30 May | 12pm | Foot of the Mound, Edinburgh | VIGIL | Health Workers for Palestine Vigil

🌻 As we start working towards the second phase of our co-programming, we thought we'd look back on the brilliant events the groups put on last year! 2025 Real Utopias co-programming: a whistle stop tour! 🚂 Stop 1: Edinburgh @emcalliance hosted a community meal & a filmmakers' round table with @carreira_lau @razanmadhoon and Maria Paz Gonzales at @grassmarketcommunity where they also screened Black Butterflies (2024, dir. David Baute) and Miracle on George Green (2022, dir. Onyeka Igwe).  Stop 2: Glasgow @exhale.group hosted a film screening of Asog (2023, dir. Seán Devlin) and The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing (2024, dir. Theo Panagopoulos) at GMAC, after which representatives from artworkers, decolonising and trans healthcare access collaboratively facilitated a group discussion. Food provided by @qasba_gla Stop 3: Inverness Eden Court Cinema Youth Board hosted at @edencourttheatrecinema where they welcomed filmmaker @jlfphotography for an in-conversation about their practice, and screened their film A Different Home (2024, dir. Jules Lacave-Fontourcy) alongside Happyend (2024, dir. Neo Sora).  Stop 4: Dundee @hotchoctrust held their event at The Steeple Church, where they screened Knit's Island (2023, dir. Ekiem Barbier, Guilhem Causse & Quentin L'Helgouac'h) and welcomed the audience into their hangout zone, where we chatted about the importance of community and how to maintain it. Food provided by Beirut.

Last year Take One Action invited the Exhale community to programme an event as part of their Real Utopias Film Festival in September. The group decided to screen films Asog + Flowers Standing Silently Witnessing, followed by a workshop with the aim to help people learn about the interconnected struggles of different communities related colonialism, racism, queer justice and environmentalism. Following on from the success of our event last year, Take One Action has invited the Exhale community to co-design another event which brings together film and storytelling to inspire collective change. To kick things off we are planning this meeting at Glasgow Zine Library for Queer & Trans Black people and People of Colour to: 🎬learn about programming film and social change events 💬find out about last year's project 📋to register interest in being part of the event co-design group 👯‍♂️meet other QTIBPoC+ film fans! Join us for a relaxed evening with food provided to learn more. Sign up for free on OutSavvy (link in bio)

✊ Happy International Workers' Day! This May Day, we're thinking fondly back to our 2025 festival screening of UNION at @filmhouse_edinburgh - a searing portrait of a group of workers (including @chris.smalls_ ) who made history by becoming the first unionised Amazon workplace in the United States. We were honoured to have a special pre-recorded intro from Chris himself, who traced powerful connections between the tactics and surveillance used by Amazon Web Services and the genocide in Palestine (swipe to watch a snippet). 💭 Huge thanks to layla-roxanne hill ( @nujofficial ) and Tom Hegarty (Foxglove) for anchoring the film in a UK context. Facilitated by @sam.lopes.goncalves , we explored Foxglove's legal action against Amazon in the UK, while layla-roxanne unpacked local union organising and activism, rooting into the power of collective action and exploring contemporary labour struggles here in Scotland. For more info about the film, click the link in bio.

We’ve truly loved collaborating with Giu from @solidarityscreeningsglasgow over the past few months. She’s been supporting us with finding and selecting beautiful, enriching titles for our Action! Film Clubs catalogue. She’s brought so much care and thoughtfulness into her programming and we can’t wait to add some new films to the selection 🌱 Keen to find out more about our Film Clubs initiative, or start your own club? Find out more via the link in our bio. 🎬

We are glad to have received funding from the Expanded Festivals Fund for our 2027 festivals, with a big focus on community co-programming, access for all and getting films for social and environmental change out into venues right across Scotland

What does it mean to ignite change through film? 🎞️ Our audience shares their reflections on the ‘Programming Films for Social Change’ talk, featuring Daisy Crooke (@takeoneaction ), Ali Aiman (@pestafilemkotabharu ), and Brenda Danker (@freedomfilmfest ) 💡 The room was filled with activists, students, filmmakers, arts practitioners, educators, and more—a powerful reminder that communities can make a difference 🙌🏼 #CuratingforChange #FilmCuration #FilmForChange #FreedomFilmFest

Make this Valentine's weekend about community, not capitalism! As artist Areej Kaoud writes, "Resistance is the deepest form of love" ✊♥️ Do you have any other events or ideas for practicing radical love this weekend – and every following one? Drop them below! 👇