Recovery Street Film Festival Screening & Panel

For over a decade, Recovery Street Film Festival has grown from grassroots street screenings to a national platform with over a million views. Each film is a raw, authentic testament to resilience, hope, and transformation—voices often unheard, now amplified through the art of recovery through film.

• Dr Rachel Genn – Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing (Fiction and Script), Manchester Metropolitan University (panel chair)
• Maddie Kitchen – Creative Director, Recovery Street Film Festival
• David McCollum – Award winning filmmaker of The Light Side
• Dominic Pillai – Curator of Social Engagement, Portraits of Recovery

The Light Side (Dir: David McCollom & Lucy Rocca) Set in Sheffield and filmed in a striking mix of black & white and colour, this collaborative film is a documentary that follows Lucy Rocca on her recovery journey. The film captures how her personal transformation fuelled the creation of the online community Soberistas and the authorship of five books.

Sons of Jericho (Dir: Laura Roberts & Alex Black) is a poignant documentary film set in Derby. It charts the journeys of five men, each navigating his own path to recovery at the Jericho House centre. As they work to rebuild their lives, an unexpected thread weaves them together: music. Forming the band “Sons of Jericho,” they transform their shared struggles into strength, solidarity, and song.

Reach (Dir: Kayleigh Gibbon) is a short, animated film that visualizes a profound human moment: the first, most difficult step on the path to recovery. Inspired by the immense courage it takes to ask for help, the film uses the fluid and expressive medium of animation to depict the vulnerability, hope, and connection inherent in the act of reaching out.

The Woman’s Recovery Mural (Dir: Maddie Kitchen) In Caledonia Park, a group of women in recovery came together to create a mural of hope, healing and connection. This documentary film follows this group of women on their journey through active addiction to artists.

It’s Magical (Dir: Michael Close & James Mosley) This documentary interview with James Clark chronicles a profound journey: how the primal safety he once found in fashion, drawing and creativity was seized by addiction, replaced by hate, despair, and ruin. It then follows his path back to the light as he embraces his true self and rediscovers the magic within.

Is… (Dir: Alex Mazonowicz)
An abstract split screen black and white film which explores themes and ideas of what recovery is and could be.

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Host or Publisher Portraits of Recovery