Miri Ian Gossing & Lina Sieckmann

Thursday 6 November 2025 5:30pm-7:00pm

5:15pm - Auditorium opens to take your seats
5:30pm - Talk starts

The bar will be open from 4:00pm-8:00pm. 

Booking is essential as places are limited.

Location: Leeds Arts University, Blenheim Walk, Leeds LS2 9AQ

In collaboration with Leeds International Film Festival, Leeds Arts University welcomes film directors Miri Ian Gossing & Lina Sieckmann, following the release of their first feature film, Sirens Call.

Miri Ian Gossing & Lina Sieckmann have been working as an artist and directors duo since 2012.

After studying fine arts and film at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne and the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts they created an oeuvre of 16mm films that combines documentary imagery with fiction and found footage.

Their artistic research revolves around the engagement with hauntologies, traumatized landscapes and queer sensibilities.

Their works are characterised by the depth of research and contact with subcultural communities and individuals, as well as by the clear lines in their approach to architecture and the worlds which shape desire, anxiety and alienation.

Their films, have been awarded with several prizes such as the German Short Film Award in Gold and the Wim Wenders Grant. They have been showcased internationally, including at Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum for Contemporary Art, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Image Forum Tokyo and Anthology Film Archives in New York City.

Since 2019, they have been curating “Blonde Cobra – Festival for Queer and Experimental Cinema” in Cologne.

Gossing and Sieckmann live and work in Cologne, Germany, and Portland, Oregon, USA.

Miri and Lina will be interviewed by BA (Hons) Filmmaking Senior Lecturer, Sharon Hooper.

There will be chance for Q&As at the end of the interview.

About Sirens Call

A reincarnated mermaid tries to find herself and adapt to the rigidity of the human world in this astonishing hybrid debut.

Part fiction, part documentary, Sirens Call follows a once mermaid now wandering Earth in a human body, as she joins the merfolk community in Oregon. Unlike anything else, Miri Ian Gossing and Lina Sieckmann’s first feature is a meditative, true compassionate ode to unapologetically living your authentic self in a world that would prefer we all neatly fit into boxes.

Want to see the film? Join LIFF for a screening at 7:45pm, in Leeds, following Creative Networks.

About Leeds International Film Festival

Established in 1987, Leeds International Film Festival is one of the largest annual film events in the UK and the longest, running for 18 days every November in venues across Leeds and West Yorkshire. Presenting over 250 features and shorts every year, with annual submissions of over 5000 from more than 120 countries, LIFF principally showcases and supports films from new and diverse filmmaking talent and which may not receive profile in the UK otherwise.

The LIFF programme is featured across five main sections: Official Selection for new narrative features; Cinema Versa for documentaries; Fanomenon for fantastic genre films; LIFF SHORTS; and LIFF Spotlights. LIFF has two competitions for features – in Official Selection and Fanomenon – and seven in LIFF SHORTS: Louis le Prince International Short Film Competition; World Animation Competition; British and Yorkshire Short Film Competitions; Leeds Queer Short Film Competition; Leeds Screendance Competition; Leeds Music Video Competition.

The 39th Leeds International Film Festival will take place 30 October — 16 November 2025.