Future Tense — ero sevan

Future Tense: Conversations at Manchester Museum

Trailer for Future Tense: Conversations at Manchester Museum (2023). Run time: 22 minutes

Future Tense approaches the museum as a lively still life in a continuation of Nii-Kwate Owoo’s You Hide Me (1970) and Chris Marker’s Les Statues Meurent Aussi (1953). Using Manchester Museum as a local case study, the film traces the lingering presence of colonial violence at the heart of many museum collections across the United Kingdom. The current debate around the restitution and repatriation of looted objects comes into focus through the experiences of two individuals; Dr. Njabulo Chipangura, the museum’s Curator of Living Cultures; and Councillor Erinma Bell MBE, a community peace activist and Deputy Lieutenant for Greater Manchester.

Chipangura and Bell share their approaches to collaborative community work and their visions for decolonising the future of Manchester Museum’s Africa collection, which remains out of sight in the building’s basement stores. The film features a creative intervention by Manchester-born artist and poet Rochá Dawkins that ties together the museum’s past, present, and future.

awards

Premio Nuovi Sguardi Award - RAM Film Festival

Student Award - World Cultures Film Festival: MAAM X

2025 Social Impact Award Shortlist - Watersprite Film Festival

Best Student Film - Berlin Kiez Film Festival

Best Documentary Short Film - Budapest Short Cut Film Festival

screening history

2025

Berlin Kiez Film Festival

Budapest Short Cut Film Festival

Firenze Archeofilm - Festival Internazionale del Cinema di Archeologia Arte Ambiente

2024