The Feminine and The Foreign: London Premiere at the LIFT Festival

We were so thrilled to travel to London to attend the 2022 LIFT Festival to premiere our documentary film series, The Feminine and The Foreign! LIFT is a bi-annual London festival that showcases excellent, thought-provoking performances in film and theatre. 

Our presentation at the LIFT Festival featured a 2-night series of salon-style conversations in Lewisham, London, where we hosted and convened a multigenerational gathering of artists, culture makers, academics and community members who were Black and/or of immigrant origin. Over dinner and intimate conversation, Mars and Njoki facilitated the audience’s exploration of diverse yet shared experiences tied to border crossing, multiple belongings and citizenships, and the future of gender expression. 

We also premiered the London chapter of our docu-film series,The Feminine and The Foreign, which was shot remotely in London in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic with the help of a London crew! F+F London features London black feminist, queer, immigrant activists, artists, thinkers and community workers. Miss Sahara, Indie Max, Phil Samba, Ama Josephine and Iman Ahmed, were all able to be present at the event (and we missed Veronica McKenzie and Nimrod Francisco-Wansavi, who were not able to be there)! We had a fantastic interactive Q and A that was chaired by the unmatched CEO and artistic director at the Bernie Grant Arts Center, Hannah Azieb Pool! The F+F films will be up soon on LIFT’s digital player, stay tuned for that!

We wrapped up the premiere with a party ‘Nairobi x Local’ alongside LOCAL that featured DJ performances by our very own JP, and Brixton’s LOCAL DJ’s; Lil C, Ayebaitari and James Massiaih, tarot readings from Miss Lilly, lot’s of food and drinks from Brixton’s local community!

We are grateful to the entire LIFT team, as well as the Institute for Creative Arts in Cape Town team for commissioning and co-producing these evolving thoughts around black activism, organising, community and togetherness, during and after the worst of the COVID pandemic, in different cities across the globe. We are currently in the latter stages post-production with 3 more chapters: The Feminine and The Foreign Cape Town, Wiesbaden and Nairobi, so stay tuned for more details coming soon!