The four artists shortlisted for the 19th edition of the Film London Jarman Award are:

Sadia Pineda Hameed
Ilona Sagar
Rhea Storr
Alia Syed

The winner of the prestigious £10,000 Film London Jarman Award will be announced on 24 November 2026 in London. Throughout Autumn, in the run-up to the event, audiences can explore the work of the shortlisted artists through a nationwide touring programme presented in partnership with g39, Cardiff; BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead; Spike Island, Bristol; Nottingham Contemporary; Towner Eastbourne; LUX Scotland and Barbican, London. Tour dates will be announced in September. The shortlisted artists' work will be exhibited at Whitechapel Gallery, London from 17 November – 13 December 2026.

The 2026 Film London Jarman Award shortlist invites us to step back, look again and change our point of view. The shortlisted artists present work that is brave, poetic and uniquely experimental in its approach. Storytelling, family relationships and oral histories intertwine with home movies, archival footage and abstract images in works that explore migration, identity, and intergenerational trauma. Elsewhere the selected artists tackle diverse themes, from shining a light on the cultural representation of Caribbean diaspora communities in the UK to delivering hard-hitting messages about the structure of society through collaborative works that incorporates interviews and documentary footage.

The Film London Jarman Award 2026 shortlist

From speculative works set in near-future Wales to the legacy of a disused Finnish sanatorium built in the 1920s, films by the 2026 Film London Jarman Award shortlist raise questions about society, challenging us in both form and content, and transporting audiences from the everyday in order to see the lives of others and the world we live in differently.

In New Territories (spectacle is king), Rhea Storr presents a silent tableau that takes us to a summer of carnivals held in cities across the UK. With the sound muted, attention shifts to the striking contrast between the extravagant costumes of the participants and the mundane background of British high streets, parks and monuments, as the work explores the implications of a largely black community creating a spectacle for predominantly white consumption.

Artist Sadia Pineda Hameed brings together personal and archival footage and her parent’s home movies in her witty, playful five-channel film, Anak, Where Did We Stay?, telling the story of the artist’s mother’s migration from the Philippines to the British Isles. The film becomes a gathering site for personal and collective experiences of journeys - family collections, Beatlemania, a basking shark, lapping waves and an Enoch Powell protest are interspersed with pictures of road trips, as time converges to tell the story of migration from one archipelago to another. The film that emerges is an intuitive narrative of the unrecorded experience of arrival, homemaking and survival through community and joy, anchored by a conversation with the artist’s mother in her living room.

Barking and Dagenham’s high level of asbestos and mesothelioma related illnesses are examined in a deeply affecting film by Ilona Sagar that was made in collaboration with the London Asbestos Support Awareness Group, social workers, end-of-life carers, asbestos removal experts, campaigners, and legal and medical professionals. The film shows the processes of claiming compensation for work-related illnesses, including the indignity of having your ‘usefulness’ measured and assessed for a claim, body part by body part. Footage of a lung operation and wide shots of the industrial landscape of Barking and Dagenham are collaged between interviews as we see how Work Capability Assessments and legal statistical measurements have become controls by which the individual can be mediated, chained to notions of usefulness that frame the value of economic and domestic labour.

Drawing inspiration from the tale of St. Mungo, patron saint and founder of Glasgow, Alia Syed’s The Ring in the Fish combines 16mm vignettes, photographs and audio interviews to explore the role imagination holds in migration. Abstracted imagery and sounds from Kabaddi - a high-energy team sport originating in South Asia – are presented alongside stories from Glasgow: the Sharifs family reflect on their earliest memories of the grandeur of the Empire, Nasreen Shahid, recalls the extraordinary migratory journey of her grandfather, while Hardial Bhari recounts his long career as a bus driver and conductor in Glasgow. Syed, who has been making experimental films for over 40 years, conjures images and stories from the inner worlds of South Asian people who came to Glasgow in the 60s and 70s, for whom the will to imagine served as a bridge to buffer the harsh realities of post-war Britain against a backdrop of political change.

The Jury who selected this year’s shortlist are: Eve Gabereau, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Modern Films, and Film London Board Member; Woodrow Kernohan, Director, John Hansard Gallery; Luke Moody, Head of the BFI Doc Society Fund; Hope Pearl Strickland, 2025 Jarman Award shortlisted artist; and Gilane Tawadros, Director, Whitechapel Gallery.

The jury said:

"The shortlisted artists possess a confident and singular way of seeing the world, transporting the viewer through their compelling and elegantly crafted films. Their outstanding works are deeply grounded in lived experience and in-depth research. They present skilfully nuanced arguments, approaching their varied subject matters with poetic sensitivity and experimentation. It was an amazing opportunity to have had the time as a jury to reflect on the work of all the nominated artists – it has been a pleasure and a privilege."

The Jarman Award works by a nomination process. FLAMIN approach individuals and organisations with expertise in UK artists' moving image to nominate one artist they are excited about, whose work stood out to them over the previous year. For the first time in the Jarman Award's 19-year history, we are pleased to share the list of nominators. View the full list of nominators below.

About the Jarman Award

The Film London Jarman Award is a prestigious annual prize which recognises and supports the most innovative UK-based artists working with moving image, and celebrates the spirit of experimentation, imagination and innovation in the work of emerging artist filmmakers. Launched in 2008 and inspired by visionary filmmaker Derek Jarman, the Jarman Award showcases artists' moving image to audiences throughout the UK and beyond through its annual touring programme.

Now in its eighteenth year, the Jarman Award has built an enviable reputation for celebrating the practices of ground-breaking artist filmmakers working in the UK. Previously shortlisted artists include Heather Phillipson,Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Oreet Ashery,Duncan Campbell, Monster Chetwynd, Luke Fowler,Imran Perretta, Charlotte Prodger, Laure Prouvost, Elizabeth Price, James Richards, Sin Wai Kin and Project Art Works all of whom went on to be shortlisted for or to win the Turner Prize.

The Film London Jarman Award is presented by Film London with support from Arts Council England and Whitechapel Gallery.

Related links