Commissions

Brave. Bold. Brilliant.

We commission new and innovative work from the UK and through our wider global networks for our Festivals. We support the growth of creative ideas and are committed to art innovation in a public space.

We encourage and support artists to experiment with new approaches, practices and tools, with a focus on environmental sustainability, innovation, diversity, social relevance and reform.

Freedom Festival Arts Trust, Hull Independent Cinema and UNTHINKABLE Film Festival partner on new online short film programme.

Freedom Shorts: Call for Short Films:

About

Freedom Festival Arts Trust uses arts, culture and heritage to create unique and extraordinary moments that challenge, inform and change the way people view and experience Freedom across Hull, East Riding and the world.

We draw inspiration from Hull pioneers such as William Wilberforce, Amy Johnson, Mary Murdoch, Head Scarf revolutionaries to empower cultural and heritage experience that tackle topics of freedom and social justice. We us public & civic space as a canvas to activate cultural change, empowering artists, heritage instigators and communities to create and collaborate, encouraging social unity and sharing the value of joy that comes with freedom.

We run a range programmes throughout the year ensuring everyone gets access to incredible culture, including the delivery of one of the cities longest running arts festivals Freedom Festival, Freedom on Tour – a regional touring platform taking international work across the east riding, Lincolnshire and North Yorkshire as well as Art and About, providing cultural experience direct in peoples communities.

In 2026, Freedom Festival Arts Trust will deliver the first of its new programmes: Freedom online. Creating a digital space for further conversation on themes and topics explored as part of Freedom Festival programme whilstsharing further work that connects and resonates with our communities locally and internationally. The programme will fearture a range of digital interventions, from films to talks, to podcasts, to performance footage.

Freedom Shorts 2026

Are you a filmmaker with a story that sparks dialogue, celebrates creativity, or challenges the norm? Have you created a short film that connects with the themes of freedom, reclaiming space, empowering communities or tackles environmental themes? Then Freedom Online needs you.

In partnership with Hull Independent Cinema and UNTHINKABLE film festival Hull, Freedom Festival Arts Trust is developing a short film content programme as part of our new digital programme Freedom Online.

We’re looking for 10 short films, 5–10 minutes long, that will be showcased as part of the digital programme (Late Feb 2026 for one weekend only) as well as our community Cinema events (March 2026).

We want the film submissions to:

Speak to themes of freedom, identity, the environment, joy and reclamiming spaces

Be in a position to be shown online and potentially in lo-tech, non-traditional, or public spaces including pop-up screens/community walls etc

Must be available in MP4 or MOV format and be digitally friendly (likely streamed on youtube)

Clear sound quality, suitable for open spaces and/or headphones

Subtitles mandatory for accessibility.

This is an exciting opportunity to reach new audiences in bold and unusual ways and help Freedom Festival Arts Trust place powerful stories directly into peoples living rooms, communities and phones.

Important information:

Deadline:  Friday 9th Janaury 2026

Notification: Friday 23rd Janaury 2026

Event dates: Late February/ Early March 2026

Nominal Fee: £100.00

Submit your film: https://filmfreeway.com/FreedomShorts 

Due to the scale of submissions expected, we are unable to provide feedback on unsuccessful applications and ask applicants to ensure they have considered the rights to present online and potentially in person. FFAT reserve the right to close the application call out window before the deadline should the callout be oversubscribed.

Any further questions, please contact the information provided below for further information:

info@freedomfestival.co.uk

We look forward to reviewing your applications.

Phil Hargreaves

Festival Director

Freedom Festival Art Trust

Freedom Short Films: Apply here

Martin Green: KELI

A raw, live performance of Martin Green's audio drama KELI was presented at Hull Truck Theatre. Audiences were able to watch this performance whilst it was still in its development stages.

Freedom Women Collective: Tomorrow

A group of children are given a crash course in hairdressing and run a salon, offering free haircuts to the public.

Surge: Beautiful Bones 2023

A collection of cacophonous performances out on the city streets collided into a life-affirming grand finale in Queen Victoria Square, getting audiences on their feet and dancing.

The Warren Nature Poems

Broken Orchestra plus LIFE and Law Holt – RE:SCORE 2.0

After the success of RE:SCORE at The Awakening 2022, The Broken Orchestra brought back a second edition for Freedom Festival 2022.

Landslides

A group of children are given a crash course in hairdressing and run a salon, offering free haircuts to the public.

Kaleider: Arch

An exploration of humans and materials, revealing the beauty and flaws of the global systems we imagine, build, and come to rely on.

Liminal Creative: Sirens

An unforgettable spectacle of audio-visual wonder which features the voices of female survivors of modern slavery.

Middle Child Theatre: There Should Be Unicorns

A hip hop, dance and theatre musical providing an inspiring outlook on the world of being oneself.

The Herd: Fast Food Megaverse

An audio journey which takes audiences around the city in pursuit of Mo – a fast food delivery driver who has become lost and trapped in an alternate universe.

Jon Hicks & Matt Rudkin: The Visionary

Modern street theatre at its immersive best

Mohammed Khaled: The Last Step Before Starting

Freedom Festival Arts Trust commissioned Mohammed Khaled to create a series of films which represented the experience of asylum seekers in Hull.

Arjan Kruidhof: De Relaxerette

De Relaxerette will take you away for just a moment from this overflowing world.

Broken Orchestra plus Wai Wan, Katie Spencer and Low Hummer: Re:Score

'Breathing new life into old film'

Wintercroft: Freedom Fox Masks

Freedom Festival Arts Trust were proud to commission Scarborough based artists Wintercroft to create a bespoke paper craft mask for the Awakening.

Marco Barotti: Moss

A kinetic sound sculpture driven by air quality data generated by the World Air Quality Index.

Freetown Media Centre: Freetown Films

Freedom Festival Arts Trust worked alongside Nova and KCOM with Freetown Media Centre and the British Council to commission the project, ‘Freetown Film Labs - Imagine a Perfect World’, a series of short films which strengthened Hull’s links with our partner city Freetown, in Sierra Leone.

Back to Ours: Dean Wilson Cinema Shack

In partnership with Back to Ours, we teamed up to bring the Dean Wilson Cinema Shack and DeanWorld Premiere Gala to Freedom Festival 2021.

Broken Orchestra – Westcott Primary School Climate Change Podcast 2021

Westcott Primary School hosted a Q&A with Luke Jerram and explored the ongoing climate crisis in a whole series of their lessons with their teachers, which the Broken Orchestra then edited together into a podcast.

Joe Hakim Podcasts

For Freedom Festival 2021, we commissioned Joe Hakim to create two podcasts as part of our online provision.

Skeg: Mural

During the 2021 Festival we commissioned local artist Skeg to paint a new mural in the Fruit Market.

Ithaca: 5000 Miles

During the 2021 Freedom Festival, we partnered with Digital Democracies to commission Ithaca to exhibit 5000 Miles - a 360-degree audio experience.

Yara and Devina: ARRIVALS+DEPARTURES

Taking the recognisable form of a station or airport arrivals and departures board, the artwork invites the public to share the names of people who have arrived and departed as a way to celebrate a birth or commemorate a death.

Can’t Sit Still: Play-Along Plink and Boo

For Freedom Festival 2020 Play-Along Plink and Boo is a circus theatre performance made specifically for camera

Lucas De Man/Company New Heroes: Hopes and Fears Across the Water

Spoken word performers from the UK and the Netherlands collaborate around urgent themes in a post-COVID-19 world.

Kaleider – A Portrait Without Borders 2020

For Freedom Festival 2020, we invited audience members to have their portrait drawn by Kaleider’s non-learning AI.

BBC Introducing: Freedom at Home

In the midst of lockdown, an exploration began to discover how local performers could be given their sound back.

Lee Karen Stow: Something to Breathe

In the following zoom conversation recorded during lockdown three generations of Hiroshima women reflect on the 75th Anniversary of the first atomic bombings on people and why their call for a world without nuclear weapons is more urgent than ever.

Luke Wright: Logan Dankworth

The third in Luke Wright’s trilogy of political verse plays looks at division, trust and privilege in the Brexit age.

Broken Orchestra: Fairwinds and Following Seas

A new commission for Freedom Festival 2019, in partnership with Hull Yorkshire’s Maritime City and with support from ACE project funds and BBC Blue Room.

Seth Honnor, Kaleider: Pig (IN SITU Pilot Project)

Pig poses a playful dilemma in public space from the moment it is unveiled.

Chris Haring, Liquid Loft: Foreign Tongues (IN SITU Pilot Project)

Foreign Tongues puts the act of speaking at the centre of a choreographic process and reflects the experience of contemporary urban life, its polyphony and multilingualism.

Benjamin Vandewalle: Studio Cité (IN SITU Pilot Project)

In Studio Cité, Benjamin Vandewalle combines a series of installations, performances and interventions in a public place, square or venue in a city, transforming the urban location into an artistic fun fair, a playground for the human gaze and a space where social encounters, discussions and the exchange of ideas can take place.

Richard Wiesner: Twenty-Eight (IN SITU Pilot Project)

Twenty-Eight is a site-specific installation representing the EU group of twenty-eight member states. Individual states are represented by translations of their national anthems, which are a central theme of the entire installation.

Lucas De Man: In Search of Democracy 3.0 (IN SITU Pilot Project)

In this new project, Lucas De Man works together with local partners to make an investigation of current democracy and its challenges for the future. With a travelling visual and musical show, full of stories and dialogue, he shows how a young generation shapes tomorrow’s democracies.

Anna Rispoli: A Certain Value (IN SITU Pilot Project)

A certain value is a multi-disciplinary format conceived by Italian artist Anna Rispoli and curator Martina Angelotti. A series of workshops will be held in six European cities until the end of 2019 with a reading-performance tour in 2020.

Without Walls: 18 New Shows Commissioned

As a partner we're working with Without Walls to support 18 companies to bring new outdoor work to fruition this year - touring to nine leading outdoor arts festivals across the country, including Freedom Festival 2019.

The Print Shop: Rise[up]! 2018

The Print Shop responded to our desire to engage people in the process of developing their own voice, done in this project through protest slogans.

Full Tilt Aerial: Substratum

Commissioned for Freedom Festival 2018 by Full Tilt Aerial.

Arun Ghosh: Ambhas (PRS Foundation New Music Biennial 2019)

We are proud to be commissioning a brand new piece about Hull, which will be performed in both Hull and London as part of this year’s PRS Foundation New Music Biennial and have commissioned award-winning clarinettist and composer Arun Ghosh to create a brand-new piece of music, inspired by water and journeys to the city from across the sea.

Sura Medura

An international artists residency centre based in Sri Lanka.

Book Works: Beyond Words

The Beyond Words project began in September 2016.