The Manchester International Crime and Justice Film Festival 2025
Welcome to the 2025 festival sponsored by the Department of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University and curated by the university’s Policy Evaluation and Research Unit.
Since 2019 we’ve had a consistent mission – screening great films which provoke debate and provide an alternative take on crime, justice and punishment in the 21st century.
This year’s programme brings you free films from three continents, in an eclectic mix of crime classics and lesser-known gems chosen by crime experts and film enthusiasts. Our experts will be on hand to introduce their movie choices and to answer your questions at Q+A sessions after each screening.
Welcome to the 2025 festival sponsored by the Department of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University and curated by the university’s Policy Evaluation and Research Unit.
Since 2019 we’ve had a consistent mission – screening great films which provoke debate and provide an alternative take on crime, justice and punishment in the 21st century.
This year’s programme brings you free films from three continents, in an eclectic mix of crime classics and lesser-known gems chosen by crime experts and film enthusiasts.
Our experts will be on hand to introduce their movie choices and to answer your questions at Q+A sessions after each screening. See below for the amazing line up of guests.
The Festival is supported by our partners:
- Novus, who provide education in prisons
- HMP/YOI Thorncross
- Instituto Cervantes Manchester
- Alliance Francaise de Manchester (Registered Charity n° 1068084)
- One Small Thing (Hope Street)
- Criminal Justice Alliance
- North West Film Archive
For the third year running, we’re partnering internationally with Indonesian creative artists and campaigners. This year we’re working with film-maker Tintin Wulia and historian Gloria Truly Estrelita. Tintin’s film A Thousand and One Martian Nights takes an oblique but powerfully moving approach to the Indonesian massacres of 1965 and their long aftermath.
With the Criminal Justice Alliance (CJA) and the Media Trust we are showing a selection of short films before the main feature. Created by professional volunteer filmmakers and CJA member organisations, these films are crafted to inspire change, elevate voices too often unheard and advocate for a fairer, more effective justice system.
Screenings will take place at Grosvenor East Building. Grosvenor East is the university’s Arts and Creative Hub, on the corner of Oxford Road and Cavendish Street, just five minutes’ walk from Oxford Rd train station. We also have a joint screening with our partners at Instituto Cervantes Manchester.
We look forward to welcoming old friends and new audiences alike, from the UK and internationally.
See you at the movies!
Your festival team: Kevin Wong, Gavin Bailey, Anton Roberts, Katie Hunter and Phil Edwards
Upcoming Films in the Festival:
ALL FILMS ARE FREE – BOOKING ADVISED
Wednesday 7th May, 5:30pm
Scum (18)
Director: Alan Clarke, 1977, 78 minutes, English
A no-holds-barred dramatisation of conditions in British borstals (pre-1980s young offenders’ institutions), Scum was made for the BBC Play for Today strand but banned before broadcast. The film will be introduced by Dr Jamie Bennett from HM Prisons and Probation Service. One of the stars of the film, MMU alumnus David Threlfall, will also be offering insights.
Monday 12th May, 5.30pm
Million Dollar Baby (12)
Director: Clint Eastwood, Year: 2004, Duration: 127 minutes, Languages: English
This multi-award-winning drama follows a young woman from backwoods Missouri who sees boxing as her escape route out of poverty and her relationship with a tired and cynical old trainer. A story of violence and brutality, with triumph and disaster both in the ring and out of it.
Selected for the Festival by learners at HMP/YOI Thorncross.
Saturday 17th May, 1.00pm
A Thousand and One Martian Nights
Director: Tintin Wulia, Year: 2017, Duration: 39 minutes
A dense, multi-faceted short film, A Thousand and One Martian Nights takes an innovative approach to the buried history of the Indonesian coup of 1965, combining survivor testimony and accounts of generational trauma with science fiction, archival footage, music, and passages of intense visual beauty. The film’s maker Tintin Wulia will discuss her work and her personal connection with the Indonesian events of 1965.
Wednesday 21st May, 5:30pm
Holloway
Directors: Sophie Compton, Daisy-May Hudson, 2024, 86 minutes, English
In this documentary, six women return to the now-abandoned Holloway Prison to take part in a women’s circle and recall memories from their time inside. As they unravel what led each of them to prison, discovering their extraordinary capacity to heal through sisterhood.
Selected for the Festival by Hope Street, a pioneering residential community for women involved in the justice system and their children
Tuesday 3rd June, 5:30pm
Je verrai toujours vos visages (All your faces)
Director: Jeanne Henry, 2023, 118 minutes, French with English Subtitles
This documentary follows three individuals who committed theft and burglary being prepared for a group encounter with three victims of the same crimes, and a young woman requesting a one-to-one meeting with the brother who raped her as a child, vividly portraying the changeable and contradictory emotions that can be unleashed in the restorative justice process.
With Lucy Jaffé, Board Member of the European Forum for Restorative Justice.
Thursday 5th June, 5:30pm
The Old Oak (15)
Director: Ken Loach, 2023, 113 minutes, English
When Syrian refugees are housed in a former mining village in County Durham, the landlord of the local pub makes them welcome, sparking conflict with some of his regulars. The Old Oak takes an unsparing look at a deprived community, highlighting seeds of hope and solidarity without denying the reality of division and hatred.
Selected for the Festival by Chris Parsons and Dr Julie Parsons from the resettlement charity Landworks.
Saturday 7 June, 1.00pm – 2:00pm
Community Policing: all things to all people? A potted history from the North West Film Archive
“Community policing – no-one’s going to disagree with it because no-one really knows what it means.” Bringing footage curated by Will McTaggart from the North West Film Archive together with his own experiences, former Assistant Chief Constable Ian MacDonald will unravel the changing nature of “community policing” from the 1900s to the present day. A wry take on a century’s worth of struggles to bring police and community together.
Image Credit : “Our friends the police” the 1914 film made by kind permission of the Chief Constable of Manchester Police – courtesy of North West Film Archive
Saturday 7 June, 2:30pm
Whistle Down The Wind (PG)
Director: Bryan Forbes, 1961, 95 minutes, English
“It isn’t Jesus! It’s just a fella!”
Classic movie. In deepest Lancashire, a group of children shelter a fugitive from justice in the belief that he is Jesus Christ. Earnest religious debates play out under the grown-ups’ noses, in a closely-observed rural setting.
With Diane Poole (née Holgate), who was one of the children at the centre of the film, and Neil Brandwood, author of a study of Whistle Down The Wind.
Wednesday 11th June, 5.30pm
The Clan (15)
Director: Pablo Trapero 2016, 104 minutes, Spanish with English Subtitles
Argentina, 1980s. Under the deceptively calm gaze of their patriarch Arquimedes, the Puccio family live together, work together, kidnap together and kill together. Only a few years before, Arquimedes had worked for the Argentinian junta in its Dirty War – and old habits die hard. The Clan is by turns a bloody gangster movie and a domestic black comedy, evoking both the brutality and the hypocrisy of junta-era Argentina.
Friday 27th June, 5:30pm
Le Havre (PG)
Director: Aki Kaurismaki, 2011, 90 minutes, French with English Subtitles
In the Normandy port of Le Havre, bohemian dropout Marcel Marx spontaneously befriends Idrissa, a newly-arrived African migrant, and is soon shielding him from the authorities. In Le Havre, Kaurismäki confronts the vital contemporary issue of irregular migration, but does so in a distinctively heightened, cine-literate style – which paradoxically highlights the humanity of the central characters and the reality of the situations they face.
With refugee and asylum seeker charity Manchester City of Sanctuary.
