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Whether they take inspiration from an 18th-century photograph or a 1960s television documentary, the nominees for this year’s Film London Jarman awards look to the past to create a vision for the future.
The shortlist for the £10,000 prize, which recognizes British artists who are creating great work with moving images, has been narrowed down to just four artists for the 2026 edition: Sadia Pineda Hameed, Ilona Sagar, Rhea Storr and Alia Syed. Yet the issues these filmmakers deal with are more than ever, including carnival traditions, asbestos poisoning and the traditional South Asian sport of kabaddi.
Filipino-Pakistani artist Hameed lives in the Ebbw Valley, Wales. This year’s Anak film Where Did We Stay? is a five-track project that mixes family camcorder footage with archive footage of Beatlemania and anti-Enoch Powell protests among other things. Airplanes and road trips are also included to tell the story of the artist’s mother’s migration from the Philippines to Britain – the finished film is in conversation with Joshua Reynold’s famous 1776 portrait of Omai, which shows the first Pacific Islander to visit Britain.
Syed continues to have a Welsh connection, having been born in Swansea and now works between London and Glasgow. His 40 years of film efforts include Snow’s 2019, a documentary shot by his father on a snowy day in the winter of 1995/6 – at the time it was filmed, the artist and his father did not speak.
Storr revisits his background, including his Bahamian-British ethnicity, with the 2025 film New Territories (Spectacle Is King). Focusing on the UK’s summer festival season, the lack of noise entices viewers to learn the contrast between the colorful costumes – blue-painted dancers, pole-vaulting costumes – and the British high streets they’re traversing. The film responds to (and takes its title from) Isaac Julien’s 1984 documentary Territories which used the Notting Hill festivals as a backdrop to explore the Black experience in Britain.
Similarly, Sagar’s 2022 film The Body Blow takes its title from a 1962 ballad composed by folk singers Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, along with producer Charles Parker. While this masterpiece included a new fictional musical and footage of polio survivors’ experiences, Sagar’s two-way film focuses on asbestos-related diseases and mesothelioma in Barking and Dagenham.
In a joint statement, the judges, who also included last year’s shortlisted artist Hope Pearl Strickland, said: “The shortlisted artists have a confident and unique way of seeing the world, capturing viewers through their captivating and well-crafted films. Try.”
It is named after a great film producer Derek JarmanThe award recognizes the true talent of UK sport. Now in its 19th year, previously nominated artists include Heather Phillipson, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Monster Chetwynd, Luke Fowler, Imran Perretta, Charlotte Prodger, Laure Prouvost, Sin Wai Kin and Project Art Works – all of whom have been nominated to win, or win, the Turner Prize. Last year’s award was split in half Onyeka Igwe and Morgan Quaintance.
The winner of the award will be announced on 24 November 2026 at a ceremony in London. Works from the four selected artists will be exhibited in the UK before the event, and at the Whitechapel Gallery in London from 17 November to 13 December.
