The Windrush International Caribbean Film Festival (WICFF) will launch its inaugural international edition in London this September under the banner Changing the Game, celebrating filmmakers, athletes, women and cultural pioneers who have transformed communities, institutions and culture across Britain, the Caribbean and the wider Black diaspora.
The London programme, co-presented with Black History Walks and African Odysseys, begins on 24 September with a special pre-screening event, followed by WICFF’s official opening double bill on 26 September, with screenings at 2pm and 5pm.
The festival will continue through 30 October 2026 across the United Kingdom, Canada and Trinidad & Tobago, bringing together films, filmmakers and audiences as part of its international programme.
For more information, visit the Windrush International Caribbean Film Festival website.
Changing the Game: Reparations
The London programme begins on 24 September at 6.30pm with a special pre-screening of The Price of Memory, an award-winning documentary by Jamaican filmmaker Karen Mafundikwa exploring slavery, colonialism, historical memory and the struggle for reparations.
The film will screen alongside Raymond T. Williams’ short film The Border Czar, opening a wider discussion about who gets to decide which people belong.
Official opening: Pioneers
The official WICFF opening on 26 September at 2pm will celebrate pioneering Black British filmmaker Sir Horace Ové with a special presentation of Playing Away.
The film follows a West Indian cricket team from Brixton as they travel to play in an English village, using cricket and humour to explore culture clash, identity and belonging.
Ové’s work will be presented alongside a new generation of filmmakers, including Ackee and Saltfish, directed by UK filmmaker Jasmin Nunes, and Breath of Another, directed by fellow British filmmaker Sheridan Seraphin.
The September 24 pre-screening and September 26 opening screening at 2pm are hosted by African Odysseys, which is celebrating 20 years of bringing African, Caribbean, Black British and diasporic cinema to London audiences.
More information about African Odysseys is available through the BFI website.
Black athletic excellence
The second screening of the opening double bill takes place at 5pm on 26 September under the title Changing the Game: Black Athletic Excellence.
The programme includes Redefined: Black History of Boxing by Kane Dunn, which traces more than 200 years of Black British boxing and the generations of fighters who challenged racial barriers inside and outside the ring.
It will screen alongside Breaking Barriers: The Paula Dunn Olympic Story, also by Kane Dunn, celebrating Jamaican-British Olympian, mother, coach and pioneering leader Paula Dunn.
The two films focus on athletes who entered institutions that were not built for them and helped change those institutions from within. The screening is hosted by Black History Walks.
Further films, screenings, special guests and programme announcements are expected to be announced.
Festival founders
Tony Warner, founder of Black History Walks, said film provides a way of recovering Black history that is often left out of the official record. He said the festival’s screenings on reparations, boxing, cricket, cinema and resistance demonstrate how Caribbean people and their descendants have continually changed Britain.
Frances-Anne Solomon, founder of WICFF, said the Windrush generation’s story continued through subsequent generations who have changed the world through cinema, music, sport, culture and public life.
She said the festival’s 2026 programme celebrates pioneers who entered spaces that had been closed to them and the generations who followed and continued to challenge those barriers.
About WICFF
The Windrush International Caribbean Film Festival (WICFF) is an international platform celebrating Black diasporic cinema from the UK, Canada, the Caribbean and beyond.
The festival takes the Windrush moment as its starting point, connecting the history and legacy of Caribbean migration with the wider global journeys of Black communities. Its programme brings landmark films into conversation with contemporary voices.
The festival’s partners include Black History Walks, African Odysseys, Alt A Review, LEX 2, PemPeople, Tesfaya Media and CaribbeanTales Media Group.
For festival updates, programme details and ticket information, visit the official WICFF website.
