Take One Action reveals 2025 programme

Last year, Take One Action announced it would be moving to a new biannual film festival model and today they’ve revealed the programme details for the first edition under this new structure, titled Real Utopias. Take One Action has always been a film festival with social change at its heart, and as ever, it’ll be using cinema as a way to gather together to imagine local and global solutions to some of the pressing issues of our time.

“We are really excited for our 2025 Take One Action Film Festival because the selection of films and events we have for you embody this year's theme of Real Utopias – both messy and beautiful,” says Take One Action director Rachel Hamada. “All of our screenings and workshops should hopefully leave you with a spring in your step and ideas for what to do next.” The festival takes place across the autumn with screens at Filmhouse in Edinburgh (17-21 Sep), GMAC in Glasgow (25-28 Sep), Eden Court in Inverness (10-12 Oct) and in Dundee (7-8 November) at the DCA and Dundee Libraries’ Steps Theatre.

How to Build a Library courtesy of TOA

One of the highlights in this year’s programme is Power Station, a reportedly funny and heartwarming portrait of community following the filmmakers Hilary Powell and Dan Edelstyn as they try and convince their neighbours to turn their street in Walthamstow into an energy-generating powerhouse via the power of the sun. Community is also at the heart of How To Build a Library, in which two women set off on a mission to re-establish three county libraries in Nairobi as modern spaces for cultural engagement where everyone is welcome and ideas are encouraged. And NIÑXS takes us to a small Mexican town where we follow teenager Karla over several years as she works through the complexities, joys and uncertainties of coming-of-age as a transgender person.

Also in the programme are two vital documentaries looking at the power of solidarity. Union is Brett Story and Stephen Maing’s essential documentary focused on a group of workers at an Amazon warehouse in New York as they band together to form a labour union – the first in that online store’s history. Slate’s Sam Adams called it “an essential document of the 21st-century labour movement”. TOA will also be digging into the archive with the classic 1984 documentary Red Skirts on Clydeside, which uncovers the untold story of the women activists who were central to the 1915 Glasgow Rent Strikes.

Union courtesy of TOA

The latter film is presented by Living Rent, who’ll be running a post-screening workshop exploring the politics of home, and looking at how the domestic intersects with the political. All of the above films have similar post-screening talks and discussions planned, and beyond the screen there are other events including an Imagining A Better Future for the Arts gathering in Glasgow, Radical Library Tours in Dundee and Utopian Zine Making in Inverness. This year's festival also includes a grassroots co-programming strand, where groups in each of the participating cities have been handed over the reins of programming and given the space to put on their own event that reflects their priorities and interests.

As ever with Take One Action, this edition will try to give audiences a sense of connection and hope in the face of our troubled times. “It’s utterly crucial for us to root into a sense of imagination and possibility," says TAO’s programmer Xuanlin Tham, “to harness our collective power, understand our intertwined and collective struggles, and begin to build the world we deserve right on our doorstep."

For the full Take One Action lineup and to purchase tickets, head to takeoneaction.org.uk