From the Editor
* Ali Abu Yasin, Palestinian playwright, actor, and theatre director, has been named PEN Pinter Prize Writer of Courage 2026, awarded annually to an author who is active in defence of freedom of expression, often at great risk to their own safety and liberty.
Daniel Nelson london.globalevents@gmail.com
TALKS AND DISCUSSIONS
* London Literature Festival, includes 28 Oct, Malorie Blackman: Noughts & Crosses at 25; 31 Oct, Real-life stories from journalists, writers and activists, readings and discussion confronting rising threats to expression; Wasafiri: New Writing Prize 2026, the magazine announce the winners. Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road until 1 November. Info: Festival
Monday 26 October
* Elections in Brazil Roundtable, Oswaldo E. do Amaral,Lucio R. Renno, Lígia Mori Madeira and Andreza Aruska de Souza Santos, 6 - 8pm, King’s College, Room: 2.09Strand, WC2R 1AE
Tuesday 27 October
* Unpredictable leaders in a made world, Tina Fordham, Mark Leonard, Faisal Al Yafai, 7pm, from £5.94, Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place W2 1QJ. Info: Frontline
* Stories From Syria, evening of storytelling, writing, and critical thinking from Syria, featuring the launch of short story collection The Book of Damascus and a short film by Julie-Yara Atz, and panel discussion, 6.30pm-8pm, £5, The Arab British Centre, 1 Gough Square EC4A 3DE. Info: Syrian stories
* Geography and the wealth of nations, Jeffrey D Sachs, 6.30 - 8pm, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, WC2
* The rise of the global shadow fleet and the oceanography of flags of convenience, how shadow tankers, flags of convenience and weak regulation create risks for people, the environment and the future of maritime responsibility, 7-8.30pm, £10/£12 - £5/£6, in person and online, Royal Geographical Society, 1 Kensington Gore, SW7 2AR. Info: RGS
EXHIBITIONS
* Frida: The Making of an Icon, how Frida Kahlo became one of the most influential artists of all time, from her political activism to global Fridamania, £25, Tate Modern, Bankside SE1 9TC, until 3 January. Info: Tate
+ How the zeitgeist helped create Fridamania
* Rising Voices, Contemporary Arts From Asia, Australia and the Pacific, work by more than 40 artists from 25 countries, £17, V&A Museum, Cromwell Road SW7 until 10 January. Info: V&A
+ Arresting voices of the Asia-Pacific
* Moved to Care: Stories of Health and Migration, explores the contributions of migrants from across the globe to healthcare over the last 150 years, from the 19th century colonial legacy of missionary nurses to the Windrush Generation, free, 20 Cavendish Square, W1G OR until 2 November. Info: Royal College of Nursing
+ Migrant nurses: Looking after Britain’s health
* The Music is Black: A British Story, how Black British music has shaped British culture from 1900 to today through objects like Joan Armatrading’s childhood guitar, Littler Simz fashion and photographs, £22.50 weekdays, £24.40, V&A East, Queen Elizabeth Park, Olympic Park. Info: V&A East Museu
* When words fall silent, cinema speaks: Zineb Sedira’s installation on Algeria’s key role in African cinema in the 1960s and ‘70s, Tate Britain, Millbank, SW1P 4RG until 17 January. Info: Tate
* When Third Cinema was a power in the land
* Hybrid forms and live realities: the sculpture of Bharti Kher, the British Indian artist explores the body, womanhood, mythology and cultural identity, V&A Museum, Cromwell Road, until 24 January. Info: Exhibition
* Childhood in War, the UK’s first dedicated exhibition exploring how war affects and shapes young lives, UK-oriented but including contemporary stories and quotes from Afghanistan, Sudan and Ukraine, Imperial War Museums, Lambeth Road, SE1 6HZ. until 28 February. Info: War Museum
* 100 Years of the Slavery Convention, exploring the links between historical and modern forms of exploitation in slavery, Friends House, 173 Euston Road, NW1 2AE until 2 November. Info: Exhibition
* Rudy Loewe: Intimacies of Care – Spaces of Grief and Possibility, the lived experience of Black people whose mental healthcare in the UK is shaped by racist discrimination, free, Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, NW1 2BE until 7 February. Info: Wellcome
* Amar Kanwar, the India-based artist’s film trilogy investigates legacies of decolonisation and the 1947 Partition, free, Serpentine North Gallery, West Carriage Drive W2 2AR until 31 January. Info: Serpentine
* The Unclassified, group exhibition of four leading contemporary Korean and Korean-heritage artists: Meekyoung Shin, Ayoung Kim, siren eun young jung, and Gala Porras-Kim, Korean Cultural Centre, Grand Buildings, 1-4 Strand WC2N 5BW until 31 December. Info: KCX
* Korea, exploring over two millennia of Korean art and culture, £18, British Museum, Great Russell Street WC1B 3DG until 31 January. Info: Korea
+ Two millennia of K-history: hard to remember, hard to forget
* Salman Toor: Someone Like You, born in Lahore and currently living in the US, his work “depicts queer and immigrant lives that straddle different cultures and inhabit the tension between intimacy and exposure, belonging and estrangement. What it means to find a community, but also the daily costs associated with visibility”, £10 - £16, Courtauld Institute, Somerset House, Strand, WC2R 0RN until 10 January. Info; Courtold
* Cecilia Vicuña: Living Threads, one of Latin America’s most internationally renowned artists, poets, and feminist activists, £16.50 concessions £10.45, Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High Street E1 7QX until 14 February. Info: Gallery
* Sanle Story: The Colour Years, photographs capturing daily life, youth culture and fashion in Burkina Faso, £7 - £12, Photographers Gallery, Ramillies Street, W1 until 21 February. Info: Gallery
* Reimagining Democracy, exhibition of illustrations by artists from refugee and migrant backgrounds, Kensington Central Library, 12 Phillimore Walk, W8 7RX until 30 October. Info: Counterpoint Arts
* Our Bodies Have Been Bridges, three feminist artists from the Americas whose work acknowledge how bodies carry memory and ancestry while resisting erasure; Charan Singh: Your Tongue in My Mouth, celebrating the lives and collective resistance of gender fluid communities in India. Both free, Autograph, Rivington Place EC2A 3BA until 13 February. Info: Autograph
* Golden Threads: Dress From Saudi Arabia, luxury garments from the Najd region, free, V&A Museum, Cromwell Road, SW& 2RL until 30 May. Info: V&A
* Windrush Food Culture Exhibition, explores the culture and its impact on Britain, Royal Maritime Museum, Romney Road SE10 9NF until 3 January. Info: Museum
* Transnational Diaries, text and photo collages portraying the everyday lives, stories and journeys of Chinese migrant traders running family-owned shops in the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte, Peltz Gallery, 43 Gordon Square, WC1H 0PD until 16 December. Info: Pelz + 6 November, Transnational Diaries: A Conversation Across Borders, Mara Nogueira and Birkbeck College colleagues, 5.30 - 7.30pm, free
* Sculpted Heritage, small display of African and diaspora sculptures, ceramics, and wooden artefacts from Lily Reddie’s personal collection. plus stories about the works. free, Southwark Heritage Centre and Walworth Library, 145-147 Walworth Road SE17 1RW until 31 October. Info: Display
ARTS OPPORTUNITIES
* Emerging Korean artists and artists of Korean heritage who have graduated from UK art schools or live in the UK can apply to take part in a group exhibition at the Korean Cultural Centre in London. Deadline: 15 November.
* Next year’s I’m Migrant Film Festival invites submissions from filmmakers of South-West Asian and North African heritage, both living in the region and across the global diaspora.
* Only people with lived experience of forced displacement are eligible to enter the Food As Home category of the World Food Photography Awards 2027.
● Applications are open for the 2027 national Young Playwrights Award, for 13–18-year-olds, with submissions closing on 1 April 2027
* An experienced curator is needed by the Migration Museum to help shape its inaugural temporary exhibitions programme.
* Applications are open for a four-month mentorship and pitch development programme supporting displaced and migrant women filmmakers working on short fiction or documentary projects. It is designed for UK-based women with prior experience in film or media who want to reconnect with the industry after relocating from their home countries. More information here
* The Markaz Review Literary Prizes are open to short stories and literary essay/creative nonfiction by writers from the SWANA region. Submissions deadline: 30 October.
* Entries for Open City Documentary Festival 2027 are now open.
* LegalAliens Theatre’s is designed for migrants, refugees, people seeking asylum and anyone with English as a second language. All sessions are led by migrant artists from the theatre’s professional team: “an incredible opportunity to learn new skills, express creatively, practice English and build friendships.” Email Nada to register at legalalienstheatre@legalaliens.org.
* The Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series is inviting poems (40 lines or less) and short prose (100 words or less) exploring: African and African diasporic migration and (im)mobility; how African and Asian refugees are being left to drown in the English Channel; and Edward Nkoloso, Afronauts and the 1960s Zambian Space Programme..
* Applications for Projekt Empower’s Practice Lab workshops for international theatre makers are invited, and a new Immersion Lab aimed at translating documentary material into performance is underway.
* Wanted: poems and short prose on the tragedy of refugee deaths in the Channel.
* The Royal Court Theatre’s Writers’ Card aims to help playwrights through mentoring, networking, funding opportunities, events, subsidised meals and free script printing.
* The Climate Migration Collaborative seeks contributors to its Climate Migration Storytelling initiative.
* Comedian Munya Chawawa has launched Black Boys Theatre Club “to give young men access to a world of theatre”.
* Good Chance, formed in the Calais Jungle refugee camp, is launching Stage Door 10 - a national programme placing 10 creatives from refugee backgrounds in paid roles across 10 UK theatres and arts organisations.
* As Yet Unscene, year-round initiative to find and develop scripts in early stages of development. it includes workshops, rehearsed readings and fully-rehearsed performances of longer extracts. Details here
* The Cockpit Theatre offers classes, workshops, readings, advice sessions, support & performance opportunities.
* Papatango hopes its new Playwrights’ Studio will be a home for playwrights of all levels of experience. Its advantages include digital workshops, lone-to-one, and thousands of pounds in open-access funding.
* If you are a refugee, immigrant or asylum-seeking writer interested in exploring your own poetry and prose, Exiled Writers Ink offers classes.
FILM
* NAZA, the film that’s caused a storm in Israel; it reveals the systems behind Israel’s calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, by the people who designed and operated them, Curzon Bloomsbury, Castle, Lexi, BFI, Barbican, Garden; Picturehouses Central, Clapham, Crouch End, Ealing, East Dulwich, Finsbury Park, Gate, Greenwich, Hackney, Ritzy, West Norwood
* The Eyes of Ghana, a fascinating voyage through Ghanaian cinema and a portrait of the country, Curzon Bloomsbury until 29 October
+ A love letter to Ghanaian cinema gold
* Film Africa, features include documentaries Camera Arabe, Crocodile, Let Them Be Seen, Life After Seaham, My Father and Qaddafi, Tutu; features include In a Whisper, Submergido, Obi Is A Boy, Lady, Language of the Wind, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, Behind the Palm Trees, Calle Malaga, Congo Boy, Clarissa, O Profeta, Ben’imana, One Woman One Bra, Chronicles Of A Siege, Dahomey, Dao, Her Daughters’ Mother, Strawberries, Dear Ajayi, Variations Of A Theme, until 1 November. Info: Film Africa
+ Rwandan mother and daughter are challenged when Never occurs Again
+ The war reparations scam that snagged a South African community
+ Two sides of Nigeria: raucousness and restraint
+ The Bedouin land that turned into concrete
+ Congo Boy becomes a Bangui man and hits the jackpot
+ Inspirational biopic of the Arch who helped topple apartheid
+ One Woman One Bra and one non-message film with a message
+ Two Kenyans fight on for a glimpse of paradise
* I Am Furious Black, retrospective tracing the career of William Greaves, a filmmaker, producer and activist whose trailblazing work defies racial and artistic barriers across the 20th century, Barbican until 28 November
* The Cycle of Love, true story of a 23-year-old Delhi street artist who bikes across Europe and Asia to find the woman who captured his heart during a visit to India, Picturehouses Greenwich until 29 October; Lexi + 27, 29 Oct; Crouch End 26 Oct; West Norwood 25, 28 Oct
* The Battle of Chile trilogy, documentary maker Patricio Guzmàn’s great work The Insurrection of the Bourgeoisie, The Coup D’Etat, The Power of the People, Curzon Bloomsbury
* Made in Taiwan, classic and contemporary works from the region, Garden cinema until 6 December. Info: Garden
Sunday 25 October
* Expose, 30-minute film created with first-time actors aged 13–17 from migrant families in London, 3pm, Vue Wood Green
Monday 26 October
* Inside Iran: War and Revolution, documentary with footage and first-hand testimony from citizens, journalists and grieving families, many speaking anonymously and at significant personal risk + Ben Zand, Maya Rostowska and Tom Giles, 7 - 8.30pm, from £5.94, Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place, W2n 1 QJ. Info: Frontline
* Bamako, docudrama takes the world financial systems to task in this unusual and fascinating courtroom drama, 6.10pm, National Film Theatre
* Fear of the Dark: Lola Young on Race, Gender and Sexuality in Cinema, Baroness Lola Young discusses the impact of her acclaimed book and its ripple effect across the last three decades, 6.15pm, National Film Theatre
* Flame in the Streets, a committed trade union boss fights against discrimination at work while being confronted with his own racial prejudices when his daughter falls in love with a Jamaican teacher, 8.35pm, National Film Theatre
PERFORMANCE
+ Blood of My Blood, South Carolina, 1862. As war rages beyond the plantation, Ginnie Good raises five children in a cabin that will outlast them all. Today, in the same cabin, now an Airbnb, a pregnant Black woman communes with her ancestors, seeking answers to questions she's afraid to ask, £15-£30, Royal Court, Sloane Square, SW1W 8AS until 7 November. Info: Royal Court
* The Hungry Ghost, Mei Leng Yew’s sexy horror rom-com exploring what lies between superstition and rationality, £15 to £25. Bush Theatre, 7 Uxbridge Road, W12 8LJ until 31 October. Info: Bush
* Fences, August Wilson’s prize-winning masterpiece, set in the 1950s, is a portrait of grief, love and what it means to be a family in post-war Black America, £10 - £55, Lyric Hammersmith, Lyric Square, King Street, W6 0QL, until 31 October. Info: Lyric
* For The Culture, Celebrations of Blackness Festival, “a place to champion and celebrate Black British artists, activists, and thinkers within our community”, Lyric Square, King Street W6 0QL until 31 October. Info: Lyric
* Girls, teenagers Tisana, Haleema and Ruhab are best friends in Nigeria, but when they’re kidnapped by militant insurgents and fear and religious differences begin to fracture their bond, how far can their friendship be tested before it breaks?, Young Vic, 66 The Cut SE1 8LZ until 21 November. Info: Young Vic
from Tuesday 27 October
* The Moth, UK-based South African playwright Paul Herzberg's psychological thriller is set across three decades after a chance meeting on a train between a Black British journalist and a White South African ex-soldier. Its departure point is apartheid and the writer;s own experience of serving as a soldier in the Angola Border War, £18 - £29, Finborough Theatre, 118 Finborough Road SW10 9ED, until 21 November. Info: Finborough
from Wednesday 28 October
* The Bridge, Alaa Shehada performs his tale of family and connection in which he has to deliver olive oil from his mother in Jenin to her sister in Amman, which means he must cross ‘the bridge’ in the heart of Jordan Valley – the only way Palestinians in the West Bank are permitted to leave or return home. £15 to £35, concessions available, Bush Theatre, 7 Uxbridge Road W12 8LJ until 11 November. Info: Bush .
TV and RADIO
Sunday 25 October
* Music Matters: Outside In, classical musicians of colour talk about diversity, 3pm, Radio3
Monday 26 October
* Global Eye, news magazine, 7pm, BBC2
* Escaping Idi Amin, two part documentary about the expulsion of 80,000 people of Asian origin from Uganda, 9pm, BBC2
* Victoria, film drama about a Kerala beautician who plans to elope with her Hindu boyfriend after clashing with her conservative Catholic family, 2.25am, Channel4
Tuesday 27 October
* Black is Beautiful: The Kwame Braithwaite Story, documentary about the Harlem photographer, 10pm, BBC4
* Sorry, I Didn’t Know, Black comedy quiz, 11.35pm, ITV1
Wednesday 28 October
* Escaping Idi Amin, two part documentary about the expulsion of 80,000 people of Asian origin from Uganda,11.30pm, BBC2
Thursday 29 October
* Junoon, 1978 Hindi film starring Shashi Kapoor, 1am, Channel4