Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema, SansSouciFest.org

SSF @ Roehampton - 2027
May 2027
We’re thrilled to partner once again with our friends across the pond for this unique event, cohosted by Centre of Research in Arts and Creative Exchange, University of Roehampton. This diverse lineup features films from six countries that reflect the depth and heart of humanity in today's changing world.


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Organising Principles of Experience, 2025, United Kingdom, 13 min

Directed by Gabriela Tropia
Choreography by Gabriela Tropia
Featuring MayaAI_V6
"Organising Principles of Experience" is an experimental short in which an AI model, tuned to the writings and sensibilities of Maya Deren, collaborates with the filmmaker to imagine new films. It explores memory, possession, and the digital afterlife, questioning what remains when the past becomes data and how an artist might lay claim to her absent hero.

The Flight of the Shawl, 2026, Spain, 6 min

Directed by Jaime Dezcallar
Produced by Sara Rollón Morillas
Choreography and Dancing by Manuel Liñán
Edited by Javier Baztán
Manuel Liñán is a flamenco dancer and choreographer who has transformed the art form, making it freer and more contemporary. Intellectual and deeply expressive, he combines impeccable technique with a vivid imagination. Recipient of Spain’s National Dance Award, he performs to sold-out theatres around the world, yet he feels most alive in the tablao: a space of barely twelve square metres, with the audience pressed close, where every breath can be heard and where he is compelled to sustain extraordinary focus and honesty. Without them, he could not move an audience. "The Flight of the Shawl," filmed somewhere between documentary and dreamlike journey, is a soleá performed with a bata de cola—the traditional flamenco dress with a long train—and a shawl, elements historically associated with women’s flamenco.

A Snake in the Grass, 2025, India, 20 min

Directed by Fu Le
Choreography by Fu Le
Dancing by Tara Tarasia, Mukul Kumar
1st Assistant by Gobinath Mounissamy
Tara leaves in a traditional rural village where a construction program of new houses takes place. She meets a worker and will escape with him on a romantic journey, at the risk of creating jealousy in the village. The film struggle with the social yoke about marriage and the danger of a forbidden love in South India, the land of snakes.

A Complete Mess, 2026, China, 4 min

Produced and Directed by Ying Hu
Choreography by Ying Hu
Synopsis coming soon.

Lowelyfe Episode 1: The Only Way Out Is Through, 2025, United States, 10 min

Directed by Quilan “Cue” Arnold
Produced by onCUE Chronicles
Choreography and Dancing by Quilan “Cue” Arnold
Music Composed by Anthony YNOT Denaro
Filmmaker: Milan Misko
Wardrobe Direction by Roobi Gaskins
Sound Design by Anthony YNOT Denaro
Agui Luz, survivor of the Tower of Aeries collapse, seeks refuge from his survivor’s guilt at a mysterious clinic—only to find himself caught in a deeper test, one that may reveal a calling he’s spent years trying to escape.

Ce Qui Nous Lie (What Binds Us), 2025, France, 5 min

Directed by Damien Bourletsis
Produced by Accrorap
Featuring Accrorap
What if, within the breath of one body, the echo of another was already resonating? In a vital surge where every movement becomes a cry, nine dancers unveil their inner struggle across shifting landscapes: sea, cliff, city, dance studio, ancient theatre. Nine singular territories. Each surrenders to raw improvisation — a moment of questioning rooted in their intimate space — where movement becomes the language of urgency: to be, to resist, to exist. Bodies answer, intertwine, and merge in an organic continuity, weaving bridges between their solitary battles. Living echoes of an invisible geometry, uniting bodies beyond forms and boundaries. What if what seemed isolated was already part of a vaster, elusive movement?