Amaal Said's FVU-commissioned film 'Open Country' (2025) screens at Flatpack Festival tomorrow, Friday 15 May, as part of the 'Made in the Midlands' shorts programme at 8:30pm.

Amaal Said's film Open Country follows a Somali mother and daughter who set out from their London home along the Old Kent Road, tracing the Pilgrims' Way into Bexley, North Kent, and beyond. The daughter plans to record an audio cassette diary for her grandmother, who is back home in Somalia and in ill health. Hoping to ease her mother’s worries and lift her spirits, she uses the journey as a way to bring joy and to help her focus on the road ahead. Inspired by a longing to connect with family abroad, the film explores the tension between being present in the here and now and yearning for another place. A number of sequences were filmed at the Red House, a National Trust property in Bexley originally built for the artist William Morris, in addition to locations in Canterbury and the Kent coast.

--

Open Country has been commissioned as part of The Open Road, a series of artists moving image works co-commissioned by a partnership of visual arts organisations; Film and Video Umbrella, The Amelia Scott, Cement Fields, FLAMIN, Forma, and Three Rivers.