PRIFF 2026: On Our Own Terms

Part of PRIFF 2026, now in its fifth year, On Our Own Terms brings together a collection of films exploring the ways people define themselves, search for connection and push back against the expectations placed upon them.

Across the programme, identity is negotiated in intimate, comic and confrontational ways. Two men turn a first date into a battle over the last dumpling, while a long-standing queer country-western community in Los Angeles fights to preserve a tradition threatened by gentrification. Inside a busy British Pakistani takeaway, personal and cultural tensions rise beneath the pressure of an ordinary working day.

Elsewhere, a young boy caught between his estranged parents experiments with new identities through a series of mysterious phone calls. An ambitious teenager races against a scholarship deadline with the least reliable person she could ask for help: her father. In rural Ireland, a daughter returning home is drawn into an act of revenge that forces her and her father to confront the distance between them.

Together, these films explore the identities we inherit, perform, question and choose, and the ways belonging can be claimed, defended or reimagined on our own terms.

Info: A first date takes an unexpected turn when two men find themselves fighting over the last dumpling. What begins as a small, ridiculous disagreement quickly becomes a playful test of chemistry, pride and the strange ways people reveal themselves when trying to make a connection.

Directed by award-winning English filmmaker Jadey Duffield, The Last Dumpling continues her work in eccentric action-comedy. Her previous films include the BAFTA-qualifying 10 Minutes For A Pound and Sticky Fingers, and her background as a stuntwoman has seen her work on productions including The Huntsman: Winter’s War, Ready Player One and several Marvel films.

Info: Stud Country follows the community behind America’s largest queer country-western line dancing event, created to preserve a little-known Los Angeles tradition stretching back more than fifty years. As the event faces the loss of its venue through gentrification, the film becomes both a celebration of queer cultural history and a portrait of a community fighting to hold on to the space it has built.

Directed by Lina Abascal and Alexandra Kern, the documentary brings together Abascal’s background in culture journalism and Kern’s experience in documentary filmmaking. Kern’s previous short Wild Magnolias screened at multiple Oscar-qualifying festivals and won Best Documentary at the 2024 NFMLA Best of Awards, while Abascal is a bestselling author and journalist whose work has appeared in publications including the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, WIRED and Billboard.

Info: Set inside a busy British Pakistani takeaway, Magid / Zafar follows tensions that begin to surface amid the heat, noise and pressure of an ordinary working day. As frustrations build, the film turns a familiar setting into a tightly contained study of identity, family and the fault lines that can emerge within a community.

Written and directed by Luís Hindman, a filmmaker of South Asian and Northern Irish descent, Magid / Zafar continues his work exploring culturally specific stories through character-driven drama. Hindman’s previous short-form work has received recognition from organisations including the BFI, Screencraft, Sky Arts, the British Short Film Awards and UKMVAs, while Magid / Zafar has received support from the BFI and FILM4.

Info: Caught between the silence of his estranged parents, a young boy begins searching for a version of himself that feels possible. Through a series of mysterious phone calls, he adopts different personas, using imagination as a way to escape the tensions around him and explore who he might one day become.

Written and directed by Iranian filmmaker Shahin Gorgani, Saba continues his interest in character-driven stories shaped by identity and inner conflict. Gorgani is also an actor and musician, and holds an MFA in Film Directing from CalArts. His previous short When There Were Trees premiered at OUTFEST and screened internationally.

Info: With only hours left before a scholarship deadline, 18-year-old Azucena must find a way to submit the application that could take her abroad. With few options available, she turns to the least reliable person she knows: her immature, self-sabotaging father. What follows becomes a fraught journey through ambition, frustration and the complicated pull of family.

Written and directed by Tiaré Scanda, Azucena marks her first short film as a director after a long career across film, television, writing and performance. Scanda has spent more than three decades as an actor and has also worked extensively as a writer, director and producer, bringing that experience into a deeply personal first step behind the camera.

Info: Croía returns to rural Ireland after time away and is quickly drawn back into the orbit of her brazen father, who persuades her to join him in an act of revenge. What begins as a reckless plan forces the pair to confront the differences between them, and the unresolved tensions that have followed Croía home.

Written and directed by Irish filmmaker Laura Shannon, Shut Your Mouth is her debut short film and draws on her own experiences growing up in rural Ireland. With a background in theatre directing, Shannon’s work is interested in family, trauma and the ways humour can sit alongside difficult subject matter.

Info: Set during the night of San Juan, Cura Sana follows sisters Jessica and Alma as a routine trip to the food stamp office becomes a turning point in the way they relate to one another. Living within the shadow of domestic violence, the sisters begin to replace inherited patterns of harm with tenderness, solidarity and care.

Written and directed by Lucía G. Romero, Cura Sana draws on her Cuban roots and a politically conscious approach to storytelling. A graduate of ESCAC in Barcelona, Romero brings an intimate, character-led perspective to a story about sisterhood, resilience and the possibility of breaking cycles of violence.

Event venue & nearby stays

The Arzner Cinema, 10 Bermondsey Square, London, United Kingdom

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