By Maria Bregman, writer, filmmaker, literary and art critic
London in late November usually demands an umbrella and a stoic attitude, but this year the city seemed to be in on the joke. It was unseasonably warm, dry, and buzzing with a frantic, pre-Christmas electric charge. The lights on Regent Street were already blazing, turning the pavement into a disco floor, and the crowds were out in force, weaving through the gridlocked traffic that sat, gleaming and stationary, like an expensive metal river. It felt less like winter and more like a stage set waiting for a show. And the main event wasn’t the shopping; it was happening inside the Vue Piccadilly.
For ten days, the So Independent International Film Festival (SIFFA) didn’t just screen movies; it staged a kind of cultural intervention in the heart of a city that was already high on festivity.
I’ve been to enough film festivals to know the drill. You usually get the red carpets, the desperate networking, the hollow buzz of industry people checking their phones while a director pours their heart out on stage. SIFFA felt different. It felt urgent. Celebrating its 15th edition (and tenth year in London), the festival, helmed by the indomitable Luba Balagova-Kandour, chose a theme that sounded almost dangerously sincere for 2025: “Cinema of Higher Values: Beyond Differences Towards Dialogue.”
Inspired by the Chilean philosopher Dario Salas Sommer, it was a manifesto wrapped in a schedule. And looking back at the whirlwind of the last week, I have to say: they pulled it off. They created a space where Slavic directors stood alongside British documentarians, where Jordanian producers debated with American actors, and where the ghost of Pushkin rubbed shoulders with the grit of modern London.
Here is what actually happened, day by glorious, messy, inspiring day.
The Prologue: Setting the Tone
Before the red carpet was even unrolled, SIFFA was laying the groundwork.
November 3rd: The Masterclass
It started quietly, in a room on Craven Street. Richard Belfield, the veteran documentarian whose work has graced the BBC and Al Jazeera, held court. This wasn’t a “how to get famous” seminar. It was a dissection of truth. Belfield talked about the mechanics of storytelling, sure, but he also talked about the responsibility of the lens. In a world of deepfakes and algorithmic feeds, watching a master explain how to turn raw life into cinema felt like learning how to build a fire in the cold.
November 18th: The Press Launch
The Castle Cinema in Hackney – a venue that feels like a secret – hosted the press conference. It was here that the festival really showed its hand. They screened Temptation by Civilisation, a short documentary inspired by Sommer’s philosophy. It was a bold move to start a film festival with a philosophical treatise rather than a sizzle reel. Luba Balagova-Kandour spoke about the 80th anniversary of the victory over fascism, framing the festival not just as entertainment, but as an act of memory. The message was clear: we are here to remember what happens when we stop talking to each other.
Day 1: The Grand Opening (November 20)
Venue: Vue Piccadilly
The Vibe: Electric, expectant, slightly chaotic in the best way.
Opening nights are usually stiff. This one wasn’t. There was a palpable sense of relief that, despite the geopolitical ice age we seem to be living in, this event was actually happening.
The choice of opening film was inspired: Onegin (1999), remastered. Martha Fiennes’ adaptation of Pushkin is a film that has aged like a fine Bordeaux. Seeing it on the big screen, with Martha herself in attendance, was a reminder of a time when British cinema wasn’t afraid to be literary, lush, and deeply romantic.
The Q&A afterwards wasn’t the usual back-patting session. Fiennes spoke about the translation of the Russian soul into English visual language. It set the bar high. We weren’t just watching movies; we were translating cultures.
We also saw U B I S U N T by Natalia Jezova – a poetic short that acted as a perfect palate cleanser, a meditation on memory that hushed the room.
Day 2: The Poetic Turn (November 21)
The Highlight: Lydia Grigorieva. I Choose to Live
The Vibe: Intimate, reverent.
Okay, I have to declare an interest here. This was the premiere of my own documentary debut. But stepping outside of my skin for a moment (a difficult trick for a critic, but bear with me), the reception was overwhelming.
Image from Anons of the Film at London BGTC Society. The film explores the life of the Kiev-born Russian-British poet Lydia Grigorieva. We screened it alongside Lydia’s own visual work, Messengers of Light. What struck me wasn’t just the applause – though that was lovely – but the silence during the screening. In a cinema in central London, an audience sat captivated by verses about the Russian Far North and the gardens of London. It proved the festival’s thesis: art doesn’t need a passport.
Lydia, present in the hall, was the living embodiment of the festival’s spirit – resilient, creative, and utterly uncompromising. It felt less like a screening and more like a séance, conjuring the spirits of the Thaw generation into the 21st century.
It is a peculiar form of torture, crossing the floor. For years, I have sat in the dark with a notebook, judging pacing, questioning lighting choices, and raising an eyebrow at self-indulgent edits. I am a critic. It’s safe in the dark.
On November 21st, I had to step into the light.
Presenting my directorial debut, Lydia Grigorieva. I Choose to Live, was not just a professional milestone; it was a lesson in vulnerability. The film isn’t a standard BBC-style biopic. I wasn’t interested in a chronological list of dates and publications. I wanted to capture the texture of a soul.
Lydia is 80. She is a poet, a photographer, and a survivor of the Soviet “Thaw” generation – a contemporary of Brodsky who ended up cultivating a garden in London. The film attempts to translate her “film poetry” genre into a documentary format. It’s 49 minutes of archival footage, poetry, and the silence of a London garden.
The Reaction. You never know if a quiet film will survive a loud festival. SIFFA is full of blockbusters and war epics. Would a film about a poet just evaporate in the room?
To my relief, the silence held.
What They Said: The critical response was surprisingly tender. Olga Sokolova, a cultural and film critic whose opinion I actually fear, wrote something that stuck with me. She noted the difficulty of the genre – how do you compress a long, complex life into under an hour? – and said: “Maria succeeded perfectly. Everything is naturally filmed, without staging or falsehood… emotions grew with every frame.”
She added a line that felt almost mystical: “Probably Lydia’s angels connected three beautiful women – Maria Bregman, Lydia Grigorieva, and Luba Balagova – so that we could see this wonderful film.”
It’s the kind of review you frame, mostly because it acknowledges the invisible architecture of the festival itself.
But the only review that really terrified me was Lydia’s.
Lydia Grigorieva is not a woman who minces words. She sat there, watching her life unspool on the big screen – the loss of her husband, the icy landscapes of her childhood, the roses in her garden.
Her reaction was disarmingly humble. “The news stunned me,” she admitted later. “I watched this film like an outsider. It couldn’t fully load me with the fact that it was about me. It’s not about me. It’s about the epoch. It’s about creativity as such. It’s about the fact that everything is given by God.”
She called it a “miracle in a jubilee year.” For a filmmaker, hearing your subject say they felt seen but not exposed is the ultimate relief.
Winning Best Newcomer (Documentary) was the capstone. But frankly, the real prize was the conversation in the foyer afterwards. People weren’t talking about camera angles; they were talking about their own mothers, grandmothers, their own gardens, and the strange, stubborn persistence of art in a difficult world.
The British Global Talent Club (BGTC) described it as “an inquiry into the very nature of creation.” That’s what I aimed for. Not a biography, but an inquiry.
It seems we got away with it. And now, having survived the premiere, I can go back to my notebook. But I think I’ll be a little kinder to the directors in the future. It’s hot under those lights.
Days 3–6: The Engine Room (November 22–25)
The middle days of a festival are where the real work happens. The glamour fades slightly, replaced by the serious business of watching films. SIFFA’s programming was eclectic, to put it mildly.
We had the Yakut film Legends of Eternal Snow, directed by Alexei Romanov. This was a revelation. It transported the audience to a world of shamanism and snow, a corner of the Siberia that rarely makes it onto Western screens. The production design by Dmitriy Mestnikov was breathtaking – not flashy, just texturally perfect.
Then there was The Postman, directed by Andrey Razenkov. This film swept the awards later, and you could see why. Alexander Petrov’s performance as an autistic postman during wartime was a masterclass in physical acting. It avoided the trap of “Oscar-bait” disability portrayals and found something simpler and more human. It broke your heart, then mended it, then broke it again.
We also saw The Trap by Sergey Baryshev, a short film that punched well above its weight, tackling social issues with a ensemble cast that felt like a real community, not a group of actors who met that morning.
The documentary strand was equally strong. Taymetov: The Forgotten Hero by Eldar Yuldashev brought a slice of Uzbek history to life, reminding us that the history of aviation (and heroism) isn’t just a Western story.
Day 7: The Documentaries and the Debates (November 26)
The Highlight: Fans Only
The Vibe: Provocative, buzzy.
Joel Van der Molen’s documentary Fans Only was the watercooler moment of the week. It’s a film that requires courage to make and courage to watch. It dives into the world of adult content creators, stripping away the judgment and looking at the human cost (and profit) of the industry.
The screening was packed. The Q&A was feisty. This is what SIFFA does best: it takes a subject that polite society ignores and puts it on a massive screen in Piccadilly Circus. It forces you to look.
Day 8: The Awards Gala (November 27)
Venue: Vue Piccadilly & Mayfair
The Vibe: Glitz, relief, champagne, and tears.
The red carpet was rolled out. The Piccadilly Christmas angels were shining overhead. It felt like a proper celebration.
The ceremony was hosted by Oleg Hill and Rosemary Lloyd, who managed the impossible task of keeping a bilingual, multi-cultural audience engaged.
The Big Winners:
- Best Feature: The Postman. No arguments there.
- Best Director: Farkhat Sharipov for Evacuation. A deserved win for a film that was technically precise and emotionally sprawling.
- Best Actor: Alexander Petrov (The Postman).
- Best Newcomer (Documentary): Lydia Grigorieva. I Choose to Live. (Yes, I walked up to that stage. It was a blur. It was an honour.)
But the emotional high point was the Vera Glagoleva Award for Best Woman Director, which went to Oksana Stashenko for New Year’s Miracle. And the Diplomacy Humanity Award to NeGogen by Polina Oldenburg.
There were speeches that actually meant something. Ambassador Andrei Kelin spoke about art as the last remaining bridge. Luba Balagova-Kandour looked radiant, delivering a closing speech that doubled as a mission statement for the future. “Cinema can restore connections,” she said. And looking around the room – at the Uzbek directors hugging British producers, at the Russian actors chatting with Spanish critics – you had to believe her.
Day 9: The Grand Finale (November 28)
Venue: Vue Piccadilly
The Vibe: Nostalgic, triumphant.
How do you close a festival like this? You go back to the roots. SIFFA screened Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin.
Showing a century-old silent film to a modern audience is a risk. But with a live introduction and the sheer, undeniable power of Eisenstein’s montage, it worked. It was a reminder that cinema has always been a political tool, a machine for generating emotion. Seeing the Odessa Steps sequence on the big screen remains one of the most visceral experiences you can have in a theatre.
It was a fitting bookend to Onegin. From the height of Tsarist romanticism to the fire of the revolution, bridging the gap with modern indie cinema.
The Aftermath
Walking out of the closing party at the Dear Darling Club in Mayfair, clutching my award and a glass of something expensive, I thought about the sheer improbability of SIFFA.
It shouldn’t exist. The logistics alone are a nightmare. The politics are a minefield. The funding is always a struggle.
And yet, for ten years, it has persisted. It brings films to London that you simply cannot see anywhere else. It champions the “cinema of higher values” in an industry often obsessed with the lowest common denominator.
SIFFA 2025 wasn’t just a festival; it was a stubborn insistence on humanity. It was messy, it was passionate, and it was absolutely vital.
Here’s to the next ten years. We’re going to need them.
