New Terrains Delegation at Sheffield DocFest 2026 - Meet the Filmmakers

We are delighted to introduce the seven producers and directors selected for this year’s BFI Doc Society New Terrains delegation at Sheffield DocFest 2026, attending from 10-14 June 2026.

The New Terrains: Sheffield DocFest 2026 delegation is a cohort of UK-based Black and Global Majority independent documentary directors and producers who work across film or immersive. Each producer or director has active projects in development and are looking to meet potential national or international collaborators and to explore co-production opportunities.

New Terrains is a BFI Doc Society Talent Development initiative supporting UK-based filmmakers to access domestic and international markets and festivals.

Find out more about the New Terrains: Sheffield DocFest 2026 filmmakers below. If you’d like to meet up with the delegation or invite them to your event drop us an email at hellobfi@docsociety.org.

Ashton John

Ashton John is an award winning director-producer, born in Hackney, London. His work focuses on documenting diverse communities and the everyday people who define them. Rooted in a people-first approach, Ashton’s films are crafted to inspire social awareness, provoke thought, and drive meaningful change.

A graduate of the National Film and Television School (NFTS), Ashton brings over 15 years of experience directing and producing documentary films. His work has been featured on Channel 4 and screened at international film festivals. His recent projects have received recognition from the Museum Activist Award and One World Media.

Alongside his filmmaking practice, Ashton serves as a Practitioner-in-Residence at UCL Anthropology, where he lectures and mentors emerging filmmakers.

Diana Cheung

Diana is a filmmaker from Derry, Northern Ireland and is currently working in the Northern Ireland independent film sector as a producer / director. Diana was commissioned to produce and direct her first short film Lion Girl (2020), about Northern Ireland’s only female Chinese Lion Dancer, for BBC NI’s True North shorts. In 2020, Diana won a development bursary from Women in Film & TV UK for her project ‘Chinese Takeaway Kids’. The project was selected for IGNITE, a cross-border talent development programme with Cork International Film Festival & Docs Ireland. The feature documentary is now in development, a co-production with Erica Starling Productions (NI) and Underground Films (Ireland), with support from Northern Ireland Screen and Screen Ireland. Diana has produced and directed a number of funded short films that have screened in festivals across UK and Ireland including Life of Ryan (2022), Northern Chirish (2022), The Girl with the Lion (2023). Her latest short drama All You Can Eat (2026) is currently in post-production.

Juliana Kasumu

Juliana Kasumu is a British-Nigerian artist and filmmaker whose multidisciplinary practice spans film, photography, and installation. Through fragmented, non-linear storytelling, she explores identity, memory, and diasporic experience. Her work has been shown internationally, including at the Rencontres de Bamako Biennale, Getty Images Gallery, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Her installation What Does the Water Taste Like? was featured in the 2022 London Open at Whitechapel Gallery and won the 2021 Aesthetica Emerging Art Prize.

Kasumu’s award-winning short BABYBANGZ premiered at the BFI London Film Festival, earning the Grand Jury Prize at AFI Fest and multiple festival awards. Other works include Losing Joy, which screened at BFI Flare and Edinburgh International Film Festival, and Adura Baba Mi, which premiered at Camden International Film Festival and was nominated for Best Short Film at the 2024 BFI London Film Festival.

Riad Arfin

Riad Arfin is an award-winning Bangladeshi filmmaker based in the UK. His work explores identity, displacement, memory and belonging through poetic storytelling with surreal elements and sharp social insight. His short A Border Between Us screened at Edinburgh International Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival, GSFF, DOC NYC and many others, winning Best Short Film at the UK Asian Film Festival 2024.

Ryushi Lindsay

Ryushi Lindsay is a British-Japanese filmmaker based between Liverpool and Tokyo, working at the confluence of documentary and moving image. His practice frequently interrogates the colonial legacies of his dual heritages and the iconography of nation; more broadly he is interested in conflict, contested spaces and cowboys.

In a previous life, he worked as a journalist in Japan, interviewing homicide detectives, private eyes and biker gangs for the likes of CTV News, NBCU and CBC. In his own practice, past and ongoing projects have been funded by the Japanese Culture Ministry and BFI NETWORK, and have screened in festivals, academic contexts and on MUBI. Currently, he is developing non-fiction works about Japanese dogs, military base-side towns, and his lifelong fear of flying.

Sara Saini

Sara Saini is a documentary filmmaker and researcher from Delhi, India, currently based in London. In her work she explores themes of migration, memory and the natural world through collection of archives and oral narratives, with a focus on how lived experiences are remembered and reinterpreted over time.

She holds an MA in Directing Documentary from the National Film and Television School (NFTS). Her short films have screened at international festivals including Sheffield DocFest, FIPADOC, Doc Edge and Freiburg Film Forum, among others.

She is currently developing two feature-length documentaries: one as co-director, exploring the intersection of contemporary art, science and ecology; and another as director, set in Srinagar, Kashmir.

Tatenda Jamera

Tatenda Jamera is a UK-based filmmaker and curator working at the intersection of African arthouse cinema, cultural memory, and collective viewing. He is the founder of Maona Art, a platform dedicated to producing and curating African films that challenge dominant narratives. Through this work, he creates space for experimental storytelling and critical dialogue. He also founded Maona Cinema, an independent UK-based arthouse cinema rooted in African cinematic traditions. His practice is driven by a commitment to building sustainable platforms for African filmmakers and imagining new cinematic futures.