The Past Is Still Warm
The past does not stay where we leave it. It lingers in bodies, landscapes, old recordings, unfinished love stories and places that may no longer welcome us back.
These films return to what has been lost: a lover in Cairo, lives cut short before memories could fully form, a vanished queer community, a homeland held at a distance, and a love story surviving only in remnants of the archive. Across essay, fiction and experimental moving image, they ask what it means to search for someone, somewhere or some version of ourselves that can no longer be reached.
But memory is not only an act of mourning. Here, it becomes ritual, invention, performance and transformation. Rivers awaken, fish offer refuge, landscapes hold forgotten presences, and damaged archives become spaces where love can be imagined again.
The Past Is Still Warm is a programme about queer memory and the ways it continues to live among us. It is about longing, exile, survival and the fragile traces through which the absent remain close.
Following the screening, Matthew Arthur Williams, director of Another Allegory, will present a live sound performance.
Curated by Huss.
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Accessibility
This event has:
- English-BSL interpretation for the introduction and performance. The interpreter for this event is TBC.
- Catalan, Dutch, English, French, Korean, Turkish audio with English language Descriptive Subtitles.
- Live Captioning for the introduction and performance.
- An induction loop is available at the GFT Box Office. Enhanced Audio (EA) is available in their screening rooms via headset.
This screening is 88 minutes long and has an age recommendation of N/C 18+
If you require access seating please get in touch. Access seating includes: wheelchair spaces, sitting in the front row / in the aisle / at the back. If you need any other provisions, please let us know by emailing [email protected] with your name, ticket information and access request. We will do our best to work with you whilst also managing the capacity of the venue. Thank you for working with us on this.
You can find out more information about accessibility at SQIFF 2026 here. If you have any questions about accessibility at SQIFF, please get in touch with us at [email protected]
Films in this programme include:
Cairo Streets, Dir. Abdallah Taia, 2025, France, 19 min.
January 2007. I am back to Cairo. For work. You have changed your phone number, Omar. I must find you. I love you… Abdellah.
Content notes: Depiction of cigarette use.
this is (not) your ocean, Dir. Jordi Wijnalda, 2024, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, 14 min.
Queer bodies attract, fall in love, falter, perish. Are our bodies more vulnerable, and therefore our loves, too? A poetic video letter; an intimate experiment of heart, head and hormones; and a loving ode to those who have passed on before memories together could be made.
Content notes: Depiction of sexual elements. Discussion of death, grief.
Alzou, Dir. Ugo Woatzi, 2025, Belgium, 19 min.
The queer community that once thrived in the Alzou Valley has disappeared. After years of exile, Alzou*—the river’s deity—returns. As they move through the dense forest, the environment seems to breathe with them, and the land begins to reveal fragments of the community’s memory. Through a ritual act, Alzou seeks to reconnect with the valley’s living forces, attempting to rekindle the bond between nature, spirit, and those who once inhabited this sacred place.
Access notes: Flashing lights.
Truth Or Fish, Dir. Seoyeun Park, 2025, South Korea, 9 min.
Angela, a young queer musician seeking success in homophobic Korea, faces a dramatic anti-LGBTQ protest during her concert. Seeking advice from a clan of mysterious fish hiding in the valleys, Angela learns to perform straight – but is she happy?
Content notes: Depiction of homophobia, religion.
The Great Tit, Dir. Kübra Varol, 2025, Germany, Türkiye, 6 min.
It`s complicated being a survivor, migrant, non-binary, having a sort of faith and missing a place that might not welcome you back with open arms because of who you are. The Great Tit (Baştankara) is an experimental film looking back in time and forth, carrying multitudes, in appreciation for what home has offered and acknowledging what it could not.
Content notes: Depiction of religion. Discussion of death, grief, mental health, racism.
Another Allegory, Dir. Matthew Arthur Williams, 2025, United Kingdom, 21 min.
The film, Another Allegory is a 21 minute digitally transferred 16mm film that viscerally revisits sites of fractured queer archival information. Shot over a period of three years, the film takes in a number of pastoral locations in the UK, and follows violinist Blaize Henry in the pursuit of the right symphony that was once lost. Through a number of performances and camera moments including a burgeoning thunderstorm that desires to break – the film is akin to a muscle or root that has been damaged or even severed.
Access notes: Flashing imagery.
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Supported by Screen Scotland, the BFI Audience Projects Fund and Film Hub Scotland (part of the BFI Film Audience Network), all awarding National Lottery funding.
Image Credit: Truth Or Fish, Dir. Seoyeun Park, 2025