Windrush International Caribbean Film Festival Announces 2026 Programme Across the UK, Canada and Trinidad & Tobago
LONDON / TORONTO / PORT OF SPAIN — 17 September 2026 — The Windrush International Caribbean Film Festival (WICFF) will launch its inaugural international edition from 24 September to 1 November 2026, connecting audiences across the United Kingdom, Canada and Trinidad and Tobago through screenings, conversations and an international virtual programme.
Presented under the theme “Changing the Game”, WICFF places the Windrush story within a wider global history of Black migration, resistance and cultural transformation. Its programme celebrates pioneering filmmakers, athletes, women and community leaders alongside new generations carrying that legacy forward.
WICFF begins in London on 24 September with The Price of Memory at Bernie Grant Arts Centre. The official opening at Kensington Library on 26 September features Horace Ové’s Playing Away and a programme celebrating Black British boxing. The festival then moves through London, Toronto and Port of Spain, returning to London for the 50th anniversary of Ové’s Pressure before closing at Kaiso Blues Café in Trinidad and Tobago on 1 November.
Building on six years of the UK-based Windrush Caribbean Film Festival, WICFF is founded by CaribbeanTales Media Group and delivered with African Odysseys, Alt A Review, Black History Walks, LEX2 (Livesey Exchange and PEMPEOPLE), and Tesfaya Media.
BACKGROUND
Windrush is not simply a story of arrival, but one of courage, imagination, survival and transformation.
For me, Windrush has never been only a British story. It is part of a much larger global moment, when colonised peoples across Africa, the Caribbean, Asia and the Americas challenged the systems that sought to define and contain them. WICFF reconnects those histories through film.
“The diaspora is real, interconnected and global,” Solomon said. “Across the Global South and its diasporas, our personal stories are connected by the struggle for freedom, dignity and belonging. Geography and colonial versions of history have too often separated us from one another. At a time when migrants and racialised communities are again being displaced, blamed and dehumanised, WICFF is our response.”
SCHEDULE AT A GLANCE
Dates: 24 September – 1 November 2026
Locations: United Kingdom, Canada, Trinidad and Tobago, and online
Theme: Changing the Game
SEPTEMBER
Thursday, 24 September — Bernie Grant Arts Centre, London
6:30 PM — Pre-Launch — Reparations Now
The Price of Memory and The Border Czar, followed by a talkback with Chrystal Rose and Dr April Louise Pennant. Hosted by African Odysseys.
Saturday, 26 September — Kensington Library, London
2:00 PM — Official Opening: Pioneers
Playing Away, Ackee and Saltfish and Breath of Another, followed by a filmmaker conversation. Hosted by African Odysseys.
Saturday, 26 September — Kensington Library, London
5:00 PM — Black Athletic Excellence: Colour. Creed. Country. and Breaking Barriers: The Paula Dunn Olympic Story, followed by a talkback with Kane Dunn and Dr Spencer Fearon. Hosted by Black History Walks.
OCTOBER
Saturday, 3 October — LEX2 Livesey Exchange
Old Kent Road, Southwark, London
6:00 PM- Beach Inna Bondage: The Fight for Jamaica's Coastline. Shorts: Beg Yuh A Call and Wi Cyah Stay
Saturday, 10 October — Kensington Library, London
2:00 PM — 60 Years of Carnival
Iconography: Jit Samaroo and Pan Gyul, followed by a talkback with , Dr Rachelle Nicole Moor. Shorts: Entitled (Adeyemi Michaels) and Roots (Don Letts).
Saturday, 10 October — Kensington Library, London
5:00 PM — Pioneers and Heroes Across the Diaspora
Hero: The Extraordinary Life of Ulric Cross and My Dad, Guyana and Me, followed by a virtual conversation with Frances-Anne Solomon.
Saturday, 31 October — The Hub, Toronto
837 Dundas Street West.
7:00 PM — Women Changing the Game, Part II Misbehaviour: The Story of Jennifer Hosten. The World’s first Black Miss World , followed by a conversation with Jennifer Hosten, cocktail reception, and book signing.
Wednesday, 28 October — Kaiso Blues Café, Port of Spain
4:00 PM — Windrush: A New Generation
A programme of six short films celebrating emerging voices: Sausage Rolls & Jollof Rice, Breath Of Another, Ackee and Saltfish, My Dad, Guyana and Me, The Border Czar, Ugly Afro Hair
Friday, 30 October — LEX2, Southwark, London
5:00 PM and 7:00 PM — Pressure at 50: Horace Ové: 50th Anniversary Screening!
Pressure with guest Zac Ové. WIth shorts Sausage Rolls & Jollof Rice, Tambu, Ugly. Afro Hair
NOVEMBER
Sunday, 1 November — Kaiso Blues Café, Port of Spain
4:00 PM — Caribbean Rhythms Across Borders:
Got To Be Free: A Village Drums of Freedom Story and Beg Yuh A Call.
Further screenings, conversations and special events will be announced.
Tickets and programme: https://windrush-film-voyage.base44.app/
QUOTES
“The Windrush generation arrived, but the story did not stop there. Their children and the generations that followed stepped into the frame and changed the world — through cinema, music, sport, culture and public life. This year we celebrate the people who changed the game: the pioneers who walked through doors that were closed to them, and the generations who came behind them and broke those doors down. Our opening programmes begin that conversation — and there is much more still to come.”
- Frances-Anne Solomon, Founder, WICFF
“Film is one of the most powerful ways of recovering Black history that too often gets left out of the official story. These screenings — on reparations, boxing, cricket, cinema and resistance — show how Caribbean people and their descendants have continually changed Britain. “
- Tony Warner, Founder, Black History Walks
“Living in Trinidad, I do not experience Windrush as a distant British story. It is connected to the people who studied or worked in the UK and returned with ideas and cultural experiences that transformed our societies. Windrush is inseparable from the experiences of those who remained in the Caribbean while relatives, friends and neighbours built lives overseas.”
- Mandisa Pantin, CTMG programmer and co-lead of Tesfaya Media
“The festival connects directly to our work in community-led regeneration. It is an opportunity to bring our communities together through film and conversation, bridge generations and celebrate the contributions of the Windrush generation and their descendants.”
- Nicholas Okwulu, founder of and Livesey Exchange and PEMPeople
“WICFF celebrates the stories of the Windrush generation and their descendants. Through powerful films, the festival explores identity, migration and belonging, connecting audiences across the UK, the diaspora and beyond.”
- Joy Coker of Alt A Review.
“I then went and knocked on all of the doors of all the production houses and found lots of amazing films by Black and minority filmmakers in Wales, and that’s how I started my career in film exhibition... I did some research and thought, ‘Yeah okay, let’s go for it, let’s give it a go.’ And here I am”
- Yvonne Connikie, Cinema Golau.
ABOUT THE WINDRUSH INTERNATIONAL CARIBBEAN FILM FESTIVAL
The Windrush International Caribbean Film Festival (WICFF) is an international platform celebrating Black diasporic cinema from the UK, Canada, the Caribbean
and beyond. Taking the Windrush moment as its starting point, WICFF connects the history and legacy of Caribbean migration with the wider global journeys of Black communities, bringing landmark films into conversation with bold contemporary voices.
One festival. Many communities. One big global story.
NOTES TO EDITORS
Founded by Tony Warner, Black History Walks has been uncovering and bringing to life more than 3,500 years of Black history since 2007. Through its acclaimed walking tours, talks, film screenings, educational programmes,
publications and cultural events, BHW reveals the African and Caribbean histories hidden in plain sight across the city, connecting rigorous historical research with accessible, lively public storytelling.
Now celebrating its 20th anniversary, African Odysseys is a groundbreaking Pan-African film programme championing African,
Caribbean, Black British and diasporic cinema. Through monthly screenings and filmmaker conversations, it has created a vital space for films and histories too often absent from mainstream exhibition, broadening the visibility of Black British and African diaspora cinema in the UK.
Founded in 2017, Alt A Review is a London-based arts and culture online and print publication championing African and diaspora creativity across film, visual arts, performance and culture. Through
its cultural coverage and curated events, it connects audiences with artists and experiences reflecting the diversity of contemporary London and the wider diaspora.
Livesey Exchange (LEX2) is a two-storey community space on London’s Old Kent Road. Growing from an initiative that transformed disused garages into workshops and studios, the new purpose-built
LEX2 building provides affordable event and screening venues, workspaces, kitchens, training facilities and flexible spaces for artists, entrepreneurs and community activity.
Founded by Southwark community organiser Nicholas Okwulu, PEMPEOPLE works with residents and grassroots organisations to ensure local communities have a meaningful stake in neighbourhood change and regeneration, so that they can develop their own ideas, enterprises and solutions.
Led by T & T producers Mandisa Pantin and Ozy Merrique, Tesfaya Media creates space for Caribbean cinema, music, culture and audience engagement. Its locally rooted programming brings artists and audiences together and strengthens communities.
CTMG is a Black-owned Canadian media ecosystem, rooted in the Caribbean and connected to the world. For more than 20 years,
CTMG has built an interconnected pipeline spanning creator development and training, original production, festivals and markets, broadcasting, distribution, sales and audience development — creating pathways for Caribbean, Black and Global Majority creators to take their stories from first idea to global audience.
Founded by Yvonne Connikie, Cinema Golau (meaning "light" in Welsh) is a pop-up screening platform and creative network dedicated to connecting, engaging, and championing emerging Black and minority ethnic filmmakers.
