FIRST founded in 2015, the annual London Breeze Film Festival has been championing independent film for a decade.
This year’s event, which takes place this month, boasts ten days of screenings online and at venues across the capital.
Madeleine Casey coordinates the London Breeze Film FestivalFestival coordinator Madeleine Casey, who was born in Dublin to parents from counties Limerick and Clare, told the Irish Post what’s in store…
What are you up to right now?
It’s all work, work, work, for me and the Breeze team at the moment as we are less than a month away from our biggest film festival to date, which opens on October 22 at Riverside Studios with the world premiere of The Banjo Boys.
The festival opens this month, what can we expect from it?
Ten days of fantastic independent films with 150 films showing either as part of our five-day in-person festival in five venues across London, including the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith, or as part of our ten-day online programme on our bespoke digital platform, Breeze Online.
The full programme includes world, UK and London premieres, an exciting industry programme, showcases of children and youth films, a showcase of Iraqi films as well as a free immersive exhibition called Spatial Storytelling of Royal College of Art graduate films to be seen on virtual reality headsets at Riverside Studios on October 22 from 2pm to 8pm.
What drew you to the festival?
I started working with London Breeze in November 2023. I was brought on board to provide a year-round programme of screening events and to plan for and deliver their flagship annual film festival.
What attracted me to Breeze was its grassroots beginnings as a platform for young and emerging filmmakers, and the way it has grown over ten years to becoming the BIFA accredited international film festival it is today; yet it still retains its sense of community and nurturing nature.
Over the past two years, we have had preview screenings of Irish works such as Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor’s Baltimore, and Rich Peppiatt’s debut and the now award-winning film, Kneecap.
Last year, we curated a special programme of Irish short films from those selected for last year’s ninth edition.
Earlier this summer, we previewed Irish co-production, The End, with Tilda Swinton and George Mackay.
What are your highlights of the 2025 offering?
We are thrilled to be hosting the UK premiere of Irish musician and filmmaker, Nick Kelly’s debut documentary, The Song Cycle.
Nick, along with fellow musician and Irish legend, Séan Millar (aka Doctor Millar), set out to cycle from his home in Ireland to the Glastonbury Festival, risking life, limb and dignity in a story about mother nature, father time and brothers on the reoad.
Funded by Irish Government funding body, Culture Ireland, Nick Kelly and Séan Millar will travel sustainably to London from Dublin, and a cycle escort will accompany Nick from Big Ben at around 11am, to their UK premiere screening at the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith at 1.30pm, followed by a Q&A and a few songs from the duo, aka DOGS, from their new album of the same name.
If any Irish Post readers would like to be part of the cycle escort, email [email protected] for further details.
Other highlights include two gala films for opening and closing nights – a debut feature documentary from British Asian director, Johan Nayar, called The Banjo Boys about the incredible journey of Malawian duo, Madalitso Band, from street buskers in Lilongwe fifteen years ago to touring world stages and appearing on the BBC for their Glastonbury debut last summer.
Closing the festival is a gorgeous and funny romcom from Jamaica by the female-led new production house, The LAB Studios.
Love Offside is an energetic romantic comedy that explores with heart and humour of the curve ball thrown at physical therapist Camille (Judi Johnson) when she encounters pro rugby athlete client, Ryan (Mike Merrill). Both striving to overcome career setbacks, they find resilience, resistance and love in each other.
Do you have a favourite film of this year’s festival?
Such a tough, tough question! They are all my babies. I want everyone to know about the wonderful films that we are showing online – 65 shorts and features that you will not be able to see anywhere else and that will be available for 10 days from October 22 wherever you are in the world.
I also want to give a special shoutout to the Irish films in the programme.
The Long Quiet is a debut documentary from Lucy D’Cruz about Irish born, Hugh MacDermott.
It is a true story of Hugh’s adventure twenty years ago as a lost and heartbroken nineteen-year-old, when he took himself off to Argentina to follow a dream to ride over 10,000 miles on horseback to New York, following the trail laid out in a much loved childhood book, Tschiffely’s Ride from the 1930s.
It is a stunningly shot and touchingly told story. You can also watch short films, Dress Smart by Trevor Kaneswaran and Baby Blues by Sophie Lynch and Alanna McQuaid in the ‘Resilience’ shorts programme at The Garden Cinema; The Secret Assistants by Katey Lee Carson curated with feature film, Quiet on Set: Class Division in the Film Industry? By Scottish filmmaker, Mark Forbes, at The Garden Cinema. While Florence by Tess Doolan-Burke is in the ‘Reimagine’ shorts programme on Breeze Online, our digital platform for the festival.
What is your favourite film of all time?
Again, very hard to say, but a film I can watch over and over is Baz Lurhman’s Romeo and Juliet; other all-time favourite films include Norman Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night; Maeve Murphy’s Silent Grace; John Houston’s The Dead; and anything animated by world-beaters, Cartoon Saloon.
For full London Breeze Film Festival listings and tickets click here.
