Features more than 150 events
Refugee Festival Scotland has officially unveiled the programme for its 2025 edition.
Running from 13 – 22 June, this year marks a significant milestone as the festival celebrates 25 years of celebrating art, culture and community and marks the 40th anniversary of Scottish Refugee Council.
The festival will feature more than 150 events across Scotland, most of which are free to attend. Artists and performers from more than 30 countries will take part, inviting people from all walks of life to join in a powerful showcase of resilience, diversity, and creativity across the ten days.
From traditional dance performances and film screenings and music workshops to cookery classes, Refugee Festival Scotland 2025 will be a joyful celebration of culture which forges connections and makes space for creative expression.
This year’s theme, Milestones, celebrates decades of cultural enrichment, renewal and welcome, made possible by providing sanctuary in Scotland. It pays tribute to the effort, creativity and coming together of so many to sustain this.
Milestones encourages people to remember past decades, reflect on the present, and look towards the future as they mark individual and collective milestones.
The festival also seeks to raise awareness of the global refugee crisis, with numbers of forcibly displaced individuals continuing to rise due to conflicts in regions such as Ukraine, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The event highlights the power of community-building and cultural exchange as a response to the hostile political environment often faced by refugees and migrants.
Refugee Festival Scotland Manager, Mónica Laiseca said: “Milestones offer us a moment to reflect on the incredible journeys people have taken to find safety here in Scotland. This festival is a tribute to their courage and a celebration of the warm welcome and support they have received from local communities over the past 25 years.
"We mark years of championing New Scot creativity as a vital part of Scottish culture and recognising the invaluable heritage that has been carefully assembled over the last quarter of a decade which deserves to be meaningfully supported, lived and carried forward.
"The festival aims to bring people from different backgrounds together to meet, mix and get to know each other better and we hope this year’s event inspires even more connection, creativity, and solidarity among people.”
Scottish Refugee Council chief executive, Sabir Zazai said: “Bringing people from different cultures together to build friendship, solidarity and a sense of shared community is more important than ever. Last summer, racist riots swept across parts of the UK, creating fear in refugee and migrant communities. None of us ever want to see anything like that again. By uniting against these acts of violence and hostility, we’re showing that a better way is possible.
“We believe Refugee Festival Scotland is an antidote to the negativity and hostility that’s started to characterise conversations about migration and about people seeking safety here. Join us in June to see hope and positivity in action as we celebrate the diversity of all Scotland’s communities.”
Refugee Festival Ambassador Shahid Khan said: “Refugee Festival Scotland is a celebration – not just of culture and diversity, but of possibility. It’s a moment to stop and reflect on the journeys being made all around us. This year, let us honour every milestone reached – and work together to remove the barriers that still remain.
“Integration is not just about what newcomers do to adapt, it’s also about what kind of society they’re adapting to. The more we foster kindness, opportunity, and mentorship, the more milestones we’ll see for all of us.”
Festival programme highlights include the premiere of Within the Fragments of Gurbet a specially commissioned film that maps Glasgow through the experience of five New Scots, including filmmaker Bircan Birol herself, and Refugee Histories walking tours in the centre and south of the city which promise a whole new perspective on the people, cultures and history of Glasgow.
In Aberdeen Living Rhythms: Stories and Beats of Resilience will see a vibrant celebration of refugee experience through storytelling, drumming and dance, and Edinburgh will host a moving music and dance performance entitled Life in One Suitcase. In Dundee, a Ukrainian theatre group is staging a musical interpretation of Robinson Crusoe, exploring parallels between Crusoe’s journey and the experience of forced displacement.
There are a number of landmark collaborations between artists taking place across the festival, epitomised by the specially designed festival artwork by Yemeni artist Shatha Altowai and Palestinian artist Jude Ershead.
Shapes, carefully stacked and balanced, represent the resilience and strength of refugees. As the layers build upon one another, they create a solid foundation – just as refugees, despite their diverse origins, come together to form strong, united communities. The patterns are inspired by traditional clothing, architecture, and crafts from Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan, Ukraine, and Iran.
Over the last year, Scottish Refugee Council has helped more than 7000 people from 113 different nationalities to settle in Scotland and rebuild their lives here in peace and safety.
