Breaking Borders: A Documentary Alliance Between Kosovo and Scotland

Supported by the British Council’s Collaborative Grants, the program gathered eight alumni, four from each organization who had previously taken part in SDI’s Bridging the Gap or DokuFest’s Future is Here programs. Over the course of 19 days in Prizren, these up-and-coming filmmakers were invited to leave behind their usual creative routines and immerse themselves in the layered realities of each other’s worlds.

The idea was simple, but powerful: radical collaboration. Through hands-on workshops, long conversations, film screenings and lectures, location scouting, and mentorship by acclaimed filmmakers Saeed Taji Farouky and Kumjana Novakova, the participants pushed past polite cooperation into deeper, riskier creative territory.

The stories they bring are anything but conventional. These short documentaries dig into themes of migration, the devastating use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, and political resistance, not only reflecting the filmmakers’ personal identities but also the complexities of the societies they inhabit. The film projects will be presented in an industry showcase at the upcoming 24th edition of DokuFest in August 2025, with the aim to maximize visibility and potential distribution.

By pairing voices from different social, political, and cultural contexts, the project insists on collaboration over authorship. It treats short documentaries not as steppingstones to something bigger, but as standalone vehicles for urgency, intimacy, and political resonance.