Morisha Moodley
Sideweighs and Backwords  (2026)

We are delighted to premiere Sideweighs and Backwords (2026) by Morisha Moodley on FVU Watch this month, one of six new moving image works commissioned as part of FVU New Takes.

Using a monoprint printmaking technique to recreate archival footage, Sideweighs and Backwords forefronts the imperfect action of memory. In opposition to the immaculate reproduction of traditional print and digital media, human memory is exposed as a verb – a constant recreation of a sequence of events, a story we tell ourselves. The story told here is a movement between homeland and a new home, a constant traversing of terrain and terms.

Making this journey is an ill body, in splendour and dishevel. It is a body that places both language and narrative at stake. Displaced and mismatched text, accompanied by sound mirroring disordered thinking, means that access to the film is not easily negotiated. Ultimately, Sideweighs and Backwords offers a series of choices to its audiences, and invites them to decide how it is experienced.

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Sideweighs and Backwords (2026) will be on view at Arnolfini, Bristol from 18 June — 26 July 2026.

Audio description and captioning is available, please click the cogwheel button on the control bar.

Have you watched Sideweighs and Backwords, or engaged with any of the other works commissioned as part of FVU New Takes on FVU Watch? Fill out our Audience Survey to be in with a chance of winning a £50 Gift Card for Everyman Cinemas (UK-wide). 

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Sideweighs and Backwords (2026) has been commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella as part of FVU New Takes. FVU New Takes is supported by Jerwood Foundation. Exhibition partner: Arnolfini, Bristol. FVU and Arnolfini are supported using public funding by Arts Council England.