The 25th Leeds International Film Festival has announced its full programme, including the full documentary line-up of its Cinema Versa strand.

With a focus on Music on Film and Underground Voices, Cinema Versa will present an exciting programme of cutting edge documentaries including exclusives, very special guests, and many live collaborations from 3rd – 20th November 2011. 

The Film Festival will present an exclusive music double-bill in Leeds Town Hall on Friday 4th November on one of the largest cinema screens in the North. Fans of music and documentary alike will be able to see the first theatrical screening in the North of England of Inni, where the rapturous music of Sigur Rós is captured in this much-anticipated new concert film. 

Following Inni, brand new Pulp documentary The Beat is the Law – Fanfare for the Common People will be presented by director Eve Wood with Pulp’s own Candida Doyle. Wood’s documentary traces Sheffield’s musical heritage through Pulp’s extraordinary rise to fame through the early 90s, and features all the Pulp band members, Richard Hawley, Longpigs and the legendary Warp and Fon record labels. 

Cinema Versa also presents a host of live collaborations at LIFF25, including everything from a gospel singing workshop to complement American documentary Awake My Soul, a collaboration with Leeds-based record label Yadig? presenting an evening of music and film with LIFF-favourite singer songwriter Serious Sam Barrett, who will perform alongside an exclusive new documentary about him and three rarely seen American folk shorts selected by Serious Sam himself.  

Cinema Versa also presents its Underground Voices strand, including special events such as Films to Change 2, a mini-strand exploring representations of mental health issues in film in association with Leeds-based Arts and Minds, and the Time to Change initiative.  

Human rights documentaries also gain a platform at LIFF25, with a special screening of Budrus, about Palestinian community organiser Ayed Morrar’s efforts to unite Fatar and Hamas members alongside Israeli supporters in a battle to save his village from destruction. Presented in partnership with the Together for Peace Festival, the screening and accompanying talk provide an update on occurrences that followed LIFF’s screening of the earlier documentary Encounter Point, which spurred audience members present at the screening to become involved in the peace movement. 

Alex King, Programme Manager of Leeds International Film festival said: “Cinema Versa reflects our love of documentaries and especially those filmmakers who find new subjects and subcultures or a new approach to a familiar story. We also work with a range of different creative partners to take the solitary cinema experience out of a darkened room and engage with the outside world. We’re excited to have a diverse range of films from the First Rasta community in Jamaica to the last record shop in Teeside, in Sound It Out, from the rags to riches story of the Leeds Jewish Community in The Last Tribe to the world’s original Eco-Pirate, confronting illegal whaling ships in the Arctic.”

The full Cinema Versa line-up will be launched along with the complete LIFF25 programme including the Official Selection, genre cinema strand Fanomenon, experimental cinema section Cherry Kino, and short film competition programme Short Film City, at Leeds Town Hall at 8pm on Friday 7th October, and will be available in full at leedsfilm.com. 

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