Encounters 26 · Bristol
353 films from 61 countries are recorded in the archive for this edition, with 4 award winners.
The festival adapted to the challenges of the pandemic, delivering its first fully online edition while maintaining a strong programme of 360 films. A partnership with the Accra Animation Film Festival brought a dedicated African animation strand, showcasing emerging talent from across the continent. Bisha K. Ali (showrunner of Marvel's Ms. Marvel), Jamie Di Spirito and Selina Ukwuoma served on the Brief Encounters jury, while David Sproxton of Aardman joined the DepicT! panel. The programme featured Mahdi Fleifel's 3 Logical Exits, Sofia Alaoui's So What If The Goats Die, Andrea Arnold protégée Molly Manning Walker's Good Thanks You?, and Carla Simón's If Then Else.
The self-contained cosmos of the golf course reflects societal structures. Although new 'tee girl' Isabel still has to learn the rules, she's already looking for ways to subvert the system.
A mysterious tiger turns up unannounced and invites himself in for afternoon tea. Young Sophie and her mummy watch in fascination as the tiger proceeds to eat not only their tea, but the entire contents of the fridge!
Two childhood friends who meet at a divergent point in their lives in their favourite fried chicken shop in South London, touching on whether the decisions of the past have lifelong consequences.
David needs help. So does David.
After a family tragedy, Patrick returns to his grieving mother's household where he is subject to a series of inexplicable and horrifying torments.
An animated documentary exploring how my mother's abusive relationship shaped my own experiences in boarding school. Through a conversation, my mother and I learn to understand and support each other.
During an extreme heat wave, a shy girl seeks refuge in an ice cream shop. But when she looks into the eyes of the charming vendor, she is on thin ice.
In the aftermath of an attack, Amy is left voiceless, trapped in a whirlwind of incompetence. She must find a way to confront what has happened, in order to save what matters to her most.
During the lengthy sleepless nights, the familiar home surroundings of a new mother take on a dark, eerie appearance.
Jessica, 27, has a discussion with a classmate about her origins. She feels it has crossed a line, she responds to something they did not expect to hear...
Maria is a Filipino maid in London who dreams of gaining British citizenship.
It's 1988. Recently married Dana helps her eternally-single friend Aleea make a video profile for a dating service called ATOMIC LOVE, provoking a confession that forces them to address the nature of their relationship.
A couple is trying to reach freedom out of a besieged town. On their way out stands a barricade with unfriendly soldiers.
As a winged seed begins its journey in the world - some
A 16 year-old school dropout interviews for a job, but when he's let down by his brother, he lashes back and turns to his friends.
At the onset of winter with no contact from her husband, a young mother calls on her returnee neighbour, expecting gifts for herself and her son.
The 'small' one is, well, small, and the 'big' one definitely very very big. They are friends.
A story about a seven-year old boy who can't sleep. He hears something coming from his parents' room. What could that be?
In a corporate world where everybody walks backwards, one young man stuck in a dead-end job tries to break out of the cycle of normality.
The caretaker exhausted by everything, his frustrated wife and one totally depressed deer. Their mutual despair leads them to absurd events, because… shit happens all the time.
A one-sighted pirate captain keeps going on a journey to get a treasure, every time with a new crew of pirates as one-sighted as he is.
Mountain Heart explores themes of isolation and ecological extinction through a series of oblique vignettes that build to a denouement both sad and tentatively uplifting.
A story about a building with an inner courtyard and its inhabitants. While the different characters follow their everyday routines, trash slowly begins to pile up in the courtyard.
When Christopher finds a sinister double of his dog, sinister things start happening. He can't tell them apart and must choose between losing his best friend and living with a demon doppelganger dog.
A single mother struggles to bond with her apathetic child, born with an insatiable and increasingly inhumane appetite.
Christian faces a long and intense night of physical suffering to get down to the weight limit for his fight, but is he ready for the emotional toll?
A musical love letter to the poor victims in horror films. In an anthemic song the dead unite across genres and time.
A man follows some workers in an industrial area. Soon, he's stripped from his clothes, dressed in a military uniform, armed. His determination not to fall behind is then tested by unsettling events.
On the eve of her 30th birthday, a London night bus driver discovers a supernatural entity on her bus.
Moon, / Kareau, / Cure, / Cancer. / How great is my hope?
Two politicians shake hands. The situation gets out of hand.
The struggle for a fruitful future is challenging with the distractions of everyday life alongside its ever-growing technological 'advancements'. The hope is for humanity to strive through all of this in a meaningful and positive way.
A frantic young woman struggles against an unstoppable inner voice that battles against all logic, rhyme or reason… compelling her to endure a physical, mental journey that takes her right to the very edge.
A young man wanders through harsh urban sprawl in search of a connection. And then, in nearby bushland, he encounters a fellow outlier.
In a version of Kolkata, India rendered unliveable by sea level rise, things take a dark turn when a family of climate change refugees are ambushed by a tiger on the flooded streets.
AVDEL feeds his family with the salary of the donkey BOZO who works in the sanitation service of the city of Mardin in Turkey.
"Music shouldn't be defined by hearing people because it's about feeling vibrations and frequencies." A Sonic Pulse explores deaf people's experience of electronic music from a visceral, communal and scientific perspective.
In Georgia, two stranded Nigerians, Obinna and Afame, navigate the sleeping city of Tbilisi. As day breaks, their ambiguous affection begins to show.
Two friends live together. They observe the culture, the church, the dating, the relationships and each other. The film follows their paths of finding their own creative way of being religious.
A lone truck driver drives his load, a ferris wheel, through a remote desert landscape. Trapped in his fears and habits, he hardly dares to step out of the sheltered driver's cabin.
A young Greek filmmaker attempts to connect with his distant Lebanese half by discovering his mother's secret stories of the war.
On a sunny day in Ghana, a foreigner approaches two children and takes them on an unexpected trip. The three of them get along so well that "Bogah", the foreigner, starts to question his initial intentions...
Mia takes her sister Squeeze to walk their dog in the fields near their home. The landscape morphs around them, tricking them and introducing Mia to a strange man lurking at the edge of a dark wood.
While out on a day of errands, an act of petty crime provides a glimpse into the unique bond between Nathalie and Wayne, revealing the intricacies of motherhood and family bonds.
Pasang, a new girl at a nunnery, has her first period after hearing a late-night ghost story. She keeps it secret until she bleeds during a prayer session. She believes that she has been cursed and must sacrifice a black goat to avoid further misfortune.
A young apprentice witch dreams of becoming the most wicked witch around — and of course, a wicked witch needs an evil dragon… or not!
A sexist violence incident fires tension in Danai's friendship with Ilona and Toufa. Torn between theory and practice, the three friends realize that patriarchy won't die with bottles (only), and they now have marks to prove it.
'The Rain' is a simple animated film on collective consciousness. It talks about how no accountability for our actions pushes us to thoughtlessly follow the crowd, which may lead to a tragedy.
What is the crazy stigma women get in dating context? What is the culture around it? In this short we ridicule the crazy-stereotype in a form of — crazy.
Prompted by the death of his grandfather, a filmmaker comes to terms with his feelings of loss by focussing on something smaller.
Artist's film: a couple, long married, stitch themselves together in bed, the bed itself is stitched, web-like, into the room. A reflection on the intimacy and captivity of a long relationship.
When flat-earth activist Fawn takes her alternative beliefs offline and onto the streets, a face from the past leads her to wrestle with her newly found ideology.
A housewife's ambitious dinner plans are derailed when a series of strange men come knocking at her door.
TERMINATED: TEETH & TINDER swipes between post-marriage breakup, middle-aged Tinder and a lost front tooth.
The daily life of a little hen housekeeper, torn between her work, her children and her old mother.
"Angelina" is a poetic subjective documentary observing the ritualistic nature of my grandmother's life and how the routine is broken by moments of daydream.
A mysterious tiger turns up unannounced and invites himself in for afternoon tea. Young Sophie and her mummy watch in fascination as the tiger proceeds to eat not only their tea, but the entire contents of the fridge!
A young girl is plagued by eerie sounds on the roof and around her, as she washes her clothes in an ominous old laundry shed.
When a disturbing presence casts a shadow over everything you do, there comes a moment when you have to confront it.
There's nothing unusual about receiving a package in the post. 'Yes, but…what if…?' are the wretched type of thoughts that cause Chloé to conjure up farfetched scenarios...
While two birds talk about their existence, a small apple makes its way into the depths of a cave under watchful eyes.
Maureen Sauvageau's escape comes to an abrupt end when she drives her monster truck into a deadly car accident.
Once upon a time there was a crocodile who didn't like to hunt.
In an abandoned factory destined to be demolished, Pavel's routine, the guardian, is disturbed by the arrival of a young engineer who discovers an unusual electric activity — a running turbine.
A rare fruit that keeps changing shape — my personal document of the first year living in New York.
Two childhood friends who meet at a divergent point in their lives in their favourite fried chicken shop in South London, touching on whether the decisions of the past have lifelong consequences.
A film behind a horse. Obscuring the narrative. Self sabotage.
Oscar is a child who sprouts in his parents' garden. Nobody knows his biological sex but he claims the masculine gender...
Women of all ages emerge from the shadows and together, walk toward a light. Guided by their instincts, they will face and transcend their own limits.
Futako, a girl reincarnated from scraps of last year's fireworks, is destined to burst on the day of this year's fireworks. Retracing the past days, she awakes her instinct to soar and shine in the night sky.
An abstract glimpse into a ritualistic prayer amongst three generations of women of African descent living in modern Britain.
People worship their consumer goods like religious cult objects. The religion venerated here is that of capitalism. The believers are only uprooted fragments of themselves.
A man in a room, in a film — it is the becoming of something and simultaneously becoming in itself. Nothing is as solid as we believe.
Unravelling the state of mind of my late alcoholic father through the poems he left behind.
Yellow gingham portrays a house emerging from an elusive memory. It's a journey near a whispered window, a dream of a stair in the deserted garden.
A caffeine-fuelled plasticine comedy about a mad scientist driven to create the most terrifying giant monster ever seen - no matter how long it takes.
A charming meteor crash lands into a lonely moon, kick-starting an unlikely relationship. Inspired by a patient at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.
First impressions are so important.
What if the monthly curse was actually a gift?
A young woman must deal with the suicide of her flatmate without alerting her seven-year-old sister, who is waiting nearby.
When a lost and disorientated man is brought back to the local police station for assistance, things quickly disintegrate into hell on earth.
In a dark world, ravaged by lies and dominated by fear, we continue our self-destructive routines toward extinction. Please note: the language in this film is made up.
The little fox Hugo has a happy family, but it's a bit unusual — his parents are geese. They live a harmonious life until one day Hugo discovers a grown fox attacking another goose.
On her search for something to grab on to, Rosa learns that gravity is stronger than everybody else.
Kelly is having the worst morning of her life. And the dogsitter's not having a great one either.
A sensory hullabaloo that explores the perspectives of neuro and mobility diverse creators of an alternative art school within a historic workhouse.
"Beyond Noh" rhythmically animates 3,475 individual masks from all over the world, beginning with the distinctive masks of the Japanese Noh theater and continuing on a cultural journey through ritual, utility, deviance, and politics.
When introverted Paul and his self-assured flatmate meet two girls on a night out, their plan to take them home takes unexpected turns.
"Sink or Swim" is an absurdist comedy about Kate, a British young woman, who ended up in Russia fighting to reunite with her son after he was abducted by her ex-husband.
Jane is a high-minded married woman in her late thirties. Since her husband is sick, the obligation of running the family rest solely on her shoulders, in which expressing sexuality becomes a luxury.
Arabella is comfortable with Eve. She is self conscious in front of Fred. Until she discovers how to free herself to be regardless of context.
On a desolate road, Gabrielle would rather isolate herself than having to confront the journey. A story about loneliness, denial, and the overwhelming emotions of living in a world on fire.
To share her cake with her friend, Anna has to go through a glacial forest… that is haunted by a terrifying bearded giant. But the giant has a warmer heart than it may seem.
Postpartum describes the chaotic phase in life of a new mother. Pumped up with hormones and lacking sleep, this intense time has burned deep into the protagonist's heart.
Alex comes to a village bar looking for someone. Edu is dancing it like a madman, ignoring that someone has come to look for him.
You know, when I was a boy, I fell in love with the Virgin Mary. It happened in a little Bavarian town called ALTÖTTING.
Patchwork Clam has a problem: she can't play because she's way too shy! Will the Patchwork Pals find a way to make her come out of her shell?
Through interweaving dance and dialogue, Material Bodies is a sensual and cinematic look at the relationship between amputees and their limbs.
A three minute 2D animation film about the protest in Hong Kong. A group of Hong Kong people protesting against the extradition law amendment bill, concerned the bill will damage Hong Kong's autonomy.
Violette, eight, an orphan, moves to her uncle Régis's home — he is a cleaner at the Palace of Versailles. She hates him and decides not to tell him a word.
The Amazing Adventures of Awesome is a hand illustrated animated film about a young autistic girl at the heart of a quiet revolution.
The Flying Gold of Arabuko is the literal and living story of the butterfly effect. It follows the practice of sustainable butterfly farming and how it has become an unlikely saviour of the last and largest wild forest of the East African Coast.
Left alone in the deepest of the summer, Malo and Zoe are trying their best to catch their mother's elusive eye.
A young girl is scared to make the first move. But her heart has something to say about it. Literally.
As last-minute plans for a babysitter fall apart, eight-year-old Brandon is left alone to oversee his younger brother Mason.
Liliana is a beautiful girl and dedicated hard worker. But she does have a secret that keeps her going...
An electrician follows his nightly routine setting up signs in the city. He goes through life unnoticed and out of touch with the world, until he realises which signs he should be paying attention to.
A grandiose transoceanic cruise ship sailing the seas.
On the eve of her father's birthday, Dawn and her fun uncle Nate struggle over her bedtime routine. A new dynamic to their relationship is explored as they navigate their way through a family crisis.
This eponymous "female portrait" is made of social expectations, stereotypes and cultural constructs. The protagonist must continuously reject the roles imposed on her and adjust to the views of others.
The Physics of Sorrow tracks an unknown man's life as he sifts through memories of his youth in Bulgaria through to his increasingly rootless and melancholic adulthood in Canada.
A young woman describes herself and her life in glowing terms, but the visual narrative tells a different story: with heart-rending power it illustrates the heavy burden of anxiety carried by this worried overachiever.
This is a film about stuttering. Oh, and also about pigeons, DNA, Goethe's Faust, fallen trees and cat callers.
Inspired by the quote of Austrian Expressionist Oskar Kokoschka: "Weeds are nature's opposition to the governance of gardeners", BATTLEFIELD shows the inner life of a military base as a microcosm that seems to have fallen out of another time.
Uloaku works the graveyard shift at a remote service station and is bored out of her mind, but a chance encounter with a suspicious stranger will soon fix that.
A retired teacher confronts some unexpected emotions as she struggles through the discomfort of a heatwave.
For Ian Golovin, the death of his father is the chance at a new life outside his native country. As he prepares to leave and bid farewell to his sister, he is forced to face his decision.
June Nelson revisits the Bass Rock, her home for three years from 1960, and reflects on the catastrophic loss of global seabird populations since.
When a young girl goes missing in a small town, a troubled fisherman is forced to confront the past that destroyed his family.
After years of estrangement, two brothers encounter their father living in a mysterious Scottish community. But how far are they willing to go to reconnect with someone they barely know?
An old lady reminisces about the alien she befriended in her youth who promised to take her with them to see the stars.
On a secluded island, a chair has fallen down.
Nine-year-old Bahar recently lost her ability to hear. Due to lack of resources in the village, she is omitted from school. This feeling of alienation is the beginning of a series of desperate acts culminating in an attempt to cure herself.
A personal story of grief, those we look up to, and how the interactions we may deem insignificant may play a huge part in how we live our lives.
A Hong Kong hitman retires as a fisherman on the peaceful Grass Island. One day, his Chinese apprentice shows up, tasked to kill him before the last ferry departs.
FATHER investigates the relationship between a father and his adolescent son with whom he has barely been in touch for nearly six years.
It's summer. Lazare picks up two hitchhikers who make him change his plans.
In an overcrowded, chaotic, lonely city – a salesman waits for a visa, hoping to change his luck and create a better future for his family.
Ben a young choir boy, who after his voice breaks mid solo, has a crisis of faith, decides to run away from his community.
In teaching her granddaughter how to make Cha, Bibi and Simran are pulled into the past, to Bibi's memories of one fateful day in Delhi, 1984.
The self-contained cosmos of the golf course reflects societal structures. Although new 'tee girl' Isabel still has to learn the rules, she's already looking for ways to subvert the system.
The best man attempts to keep face and deliver his speech at his brother's wedding, following a sexual advance in the hotel bathroom by the father of the bride.
A man finds his stolen bicycle and it now belongs to a stranger. In his attempts to retrieve the bicycle, he struggles to remain human.
Nobody forgets their first time.
A young man walks around London, asking strangers how to have sex.
When stolen from his home as a caterpillar and kept in a jar, a little hero faces the most incredible obstacles to get back home.
In a quiet Hungarian village, men gather to swill beer at the bar. Meanwhile, the women are busy at work, contributing their time to the mass production of sexual satisfaction.
Loukoum can't stand the passage of Time anymore. She decides to go face it in person and free herself from its control.
A brilliant scientist sees his convictions crumble during a picnic at the lake.
In a wild and uninhabited desert, a team of rangers is in charge of rescuing people who got lost there.
Rose grows up with her snails in the park. Their park. One day she is attacked by intruders. Or is it the other way around? A film about dehumanization.
This is a story about a girl who wants to be the smartest person in the world. When all the things she's learned can no longer fit in one head, her mother buys her a backup one.
1967. Jean, an eight-years-old city boy, spends his holidays at his grandparents' farm. He gives in candid yet cruel games on the surrounding animals.
An animator tries to make sense of a failed relationship.
A betrayed wife starts to investigate her husband's mistresses. Her jealousy is gradually replaced by curiosity.
In the oldest city of the Middle East, a Kurdish student, a Muslim musician and a Christian little girl are part of a cultural mosaic. When vicious noises bring war upon their city, a mysterious sunfish appears to save them.
"Movements" is a 10-minute animated film which I drew at a rate of 2 seconds of animation per day. We are all walking, seeing, working, running, and stopping together.
A curious lynx leaves its forest, attracted by the lights of the nearby town.
Nestor, a man with several obsessive-compulsive behaviours, lives in an unstable houseboat which never stops oscillating.
Under a gloomy sun, two characters look for adaptation.
Jana, who's in her fifties, lives alone with her 15 year old daughter Johanka. Her loneliness along with rising fears of old age makes her put pressure on her married lover while Johanka stumbles into her first sexual experience.
A short film about sharing.
Onboard a colonial spaceship three weeks from its destination, Nathan, Thomas and Eleanor are conditioned for a smooth transition to life on planet Earth.
This film is a poetic fable about a young depressed girl. Someone who wants to stay invisible cares about her and tries to help.
Halima, a Sudanese henna painter, goes to Basma's, a young Egyptian bride, to prepare her for her wedding: under the eyes of her daughter Ward, the encounter between the two women grows from complicity to suddenly unveiled tensions.
In a failed attempt to get back together with his ex girlfriend, Pablo realizes he's going bald.
Mel, a 17-year-old guitar enthusiast, is completely obsessed with her favourite musician, Hugo Turner but she must confront this idolised version of him when he is accused of sex- ual harassment and find purpose in her own passion.
An isolation dance music video by Karni and Saul for Micah's emotional new song You and Me. Inspired by home isolation connection, dance and the online video culture currently present.
On a summer day, the paths of two boys unexpectedly cross.
Verisimilitude is a short film about an unemployed disabled actress who is frustrated as all the disabled acting jobs go to able bodied actors.
A teenage girl gets involved in the process of delivering a pack of cocaine to its client, and gets stuck in a weird cycle of occurrences.
A sociological meditation on the different "exits" that young Palestinians choose, in order to cope with life in the refugee camps.
Clara is a nine-year-old girl with a distorted view of reality. She'll fall into a pit from which she can only make her way up through great effort and assistance from the people close to her.
A father, a son and all the precious particles left behind. After losing his father at a young age, filmmaker Isaac Knights-Washbourn explores fragmented memories of his childhood.
Waves of small coloured glass pieces weave across screen. Shapes appear, merge, and disintegrate. From the chaos a form is created.
The key moments in a woman's life with her faithful companion by her side every step of the way.
Three couples are drifting apart. A hedgehog falls for a balloon, but finds it hard to keep his grooming routine. There is a coldness between an arctic couple, and two oysters are longing to meet.
The film follows Mthunzi walking home from the shops as he sees a lady go into seizures in her driveway — he is then asked to help carry her in by her niece and so becomes caught up in a world he does not belong.
Zaire, January 1993. Rachel's family, an 8 year old French girl, lives in Kinshasa in a house overlooking the Congo River. A sensual and intimate film about memory, writing and forgetting.
Mel builds sculptures of her crisps-obsessed crush. When the moon vanishes before her eyes, she must find a way to save the world before it crumbles into tiny pieces.
The film follows a day in the life of a young teenage boy as he faces his fears and concerns.
In a heavily polluted world, a young woman mourns the disappearance of animal species. When she falls ill due to a bacterial infection, nature appears to send her a message in her hallucinations.
Pauline and Barry are seemingly happily married, until Pauline tunes into relationship hour and recognises the voice spilling a lifetime of regrets on live radio.
A little girl really wants a dog. Her father gives her one chance to get it. Will she succeed?
Abdellah, a shepherd living in the mountains, is forced to brave the snow in order to get food and save his cattle. Once he gets to the village, he faces a supernatural phenomenon.
Keratin follows an isolated man's ritualistic pursuit of creation in the heart of a forest.
In a long sequence through Funafuti island, the state of drought and flooding alternate fluidly, in a seamless manner.
A young T-Rex struggles with an identity crisis.
A millennial is looking for her magic 8 ball inside her unconsciousness.
Using a faceless doll a criminal reenacts a brutal crime. But surprisingly he is not the one being judged. There seems to be an odd one out in the investigative group.
On a drive back home in a dirty car, three young women talk about other people. Their conversation flows naturally, and takes them into uncharted territory.
In an apartment where every object belongs to the past, Tina is trying to revive the holiday rituals. As New Year's Eve is approaching, festivities and fireworks keep intruding into her private space.
I am like a pendulum that can't stop waving, always moving, never reaching.
There's method to the madness — all square boi wants is his cuppa and he's willing to face insanity to get it.
Fragments is an animated, semi-autobiographical film that follows a young girl as she grows up trying to navigate her society, biracial identity, and broken home.
A man encounters the goddess of the wind inside a deadly storm.
David needs help. So does David.
This narrative experimental film-poem invites the audience to a different level of perception of the world, different from logical and rational. The film goes by itself, it evolves freely.
A butterfly explores the ruins of an ancient civilization that leads to an underground cave. In the cave, the butterfly meets the Humanoid butterfly.
Children exposed to domestic abuse are more likely to be abusive or experience abuse in their adult relationships, creating a cycle of trauma and risks to life chances across generations.
Deep into the small hours of the night, drenched in black coffee and paperwork, a lonely office worker's sanity starts to slip away.
A reclusive college student is driven mad after picking a booger he can't flick away.
Master storyteller Neil Gaiman narrates a strange tale of saintly murder & the dark history behind the chapel on Iona. Brought to life with beautifully illustrated paper cutouts and stopmotion techniques.
Japan's ageing crisis is mounting, the country's villages are disappearing. This is the story of one community's peculiar struggle for survival.
An elderly mute woman finds herself on a remote island, where she subsequently meets a young man who longs to visit his mother.
A woman slips into Alzheimer's disease and before sinking, she's holding on to the memory of a missed appointment near a covered bridge. Akin to her memory dislocated, the Bridge becomes a vast mess where hope and mind are laid astray.
Anita has been suffering under the tyranny of the professors at the animal research clinic for years. When she meets the pig Sirius, she realizes that she has to take her fate into her own hands.
Tolya called his father all of a sudden, on Wednesday, and said that they need to meet. His father is guessing, why today? So many years have passed after they parted because of a big scandal.
Only a Child is an omnibus animation short that gives shape and colour to Severn Suzuki's original speech at the UN Summit in Rio (1992): a child's desperate call to action for our planet's future.
Staged in a dense mythical forest, the story is told from the perspective of TOT, a young girl who carries the unassuming and turbulent force of grief with her, fashioned in a delicate glass Jar.
When a parcel arrives that no one expects, a normal Saturday morning takes a much darker turn...
A wooden doll must traverse the outside world to find his lost dollhouse, but trails a stuffed elephant.
A diverse cross section of tired, drunk, disgruntled, joyous and riotous strangers, pushed together within the confines of the last train home.
In a forgotten seaside town in the north of England, seventy eight year old Dave hands out food and kindness to those in need. After ten years of austerity, this nuanced portrait of a volunteer-run food bank penetrates the harsh reality of contemporary Britain.
Threat looms and most have fled. While the queen prepares to evacuate, a determined few seize an opportunity.
An unhealthy relationship between two forest beings leads Lemon Boy to reconsider his priorities for the future.
A Life on Earth is a hand-crafted film that uses the cycles of life over the four seasons at an allotment to structure a personal, poetic, hypnotic regression in time, on a family's journey through Invitro Fertilisation process (IVF).
A series for 2 to 4 year olds about the adventures of three little birds and their friends. In the pilot episode the three little birds tells us about the ABC.
Tells the story of a child trying to wake up from a coma, he starts looking for the door that takes him out of the maze that he spins in, and when he finds the door that bring him back to life once again the had time run out.
A young boy leaves his parents home to travel from London to Zimbabwe there he spends the summer with his extended family in Harare, with plenty of adventure.
Lili, Stretch and ZéGordo, AKA, the Troublemakers, decide to surprise their friend Rosita by decorating her school for the neighborhood's annual Christmas dinner.
June and Timothy Watts are late for their train. June starts reading a book as Tim continues playing on his gameboy. The gameboy dies leaving Tim bored.
Created during March 2020, this experimental stop-motion film reflects the anxiety of the artists involved as the anxiety around the COVID-19 virus grew globally.
Somewhere along the outskirts of Johannesburg. Milo, a young illegal miner descends down into another abandoned mine, for another day of scavenging.
Based on Hausa culture of West African oral folktale, Gizo Da Basamude (Clever Spider and the Colossus Man) tells the tale of a gigantic Egyptian that came to Hausa land and challenge the people with an impossible task.
An unlikely friendship between a clumsy meerkat and an overly quiet dassie is tested by the harsh environment of the beautiful, yet unpredictable Kalahari Desert.
Drunken Dreams highlights the devastating effect of alcohol, the hopelessness of old age and making a difference against all odds. In the end, it's really a matter of choice.
In the Fynbos, Mbali a Nature Sprite looks at all the plants with concern. She tries to revive a wilted flower. Defeated, Mbali sees fiery embers float past. She follows and finds a Fire Sprite scorching plants.
Flow, an inquisitive, young jellyfish swims through the ocean in a search of a friend. Throughout her journey, she constantly gets rejected by many characters — specifically a crab that she tried her best with by offering him a new shell.
Deep within the sewer systems lies a city full of bustling rats. Theo, a plain, lonely rat makes his way toward the subway, seemingly invisible to the rats around him. Until he purchases a dazzling jacket which he hopes will gain him social recognition.
In the depths of the African Savannah, a mischievous, pie loving goblin begins his daily routine by visiting his best friends' on a chicken farm, while cleverly managing to avoid the clutches of a vigilant farmer.
A collection of creepy short stories.
Ndiogou, a young Indian hemp addict, is about to smoke his last joint. To get in the mood he sings an old song by Bob Marley which happens to be the magic formula of the Ganjas.
An adventure road trip and stop motion film. Partnered couple, Razzo, a lovable triceratops & Bee, a whip-smart trans animal find themselves in a bit of a pickle when they are caught trespassing on a mysterious property.
One night a female bird heads to a bar determined to find love. Outwardly she seems to be incredibly outgoing and popular, everyone seems to want to get her attention, but underneath there is a dark layer of insecurity.
Omar nickname Bob, is a rapper with specific needs. He sees himself as a creative person capable of changing the world.
From being swindled by a immigration officer to fighting with a hairdresser. I'm Living in Ghana Get Me Out Of Here are short stories about the filmmakers experience migrating from London to Ghana.
A short thriller film that centers around a patient, Mosa, who wakes up to find the hospital that he is admitted to has been attacked and patients murdered by a mysterious creature.
This is the story of a boy named Kitwana, a boy who laughed and played, and went to school, and did all the things that children do. One day Kitwana's life would change and not for the better. This however, no body knew.
As the stinging sand billows across the desolate plains of a distant desert, two sorcerers come face to face to settle a quarrel in a test of skill and strength.
By necessity and especially by the force of the machine we have become sleepwalking beings deprived of God, the damned of the earth and test subjects over the black market of history test subjects of the machine.
Adia, an odd village girl, stumbles upon a magical talking drum and transforms into a fighting warrior — a Magical Drummer! Can she save her village?
The film revolves around the idea of intolerance and how some people want to practice dictatorship by imposing their views on others.
Maama Nankya shares a bedtime story with Nankya, featuring a song called Enjovu. The story is based on an old folk tale and Luganda nursery rhyme we used to sing as kids growing up in Uganda.
This film is a graduation project from the Faculty of Arts and Design of the Media Arts Department at Pharos University in Alexandria.
Two sale toys, cruelly rejected by the buying public because they are different, make a daring escape and end up somewhere quite unexpected and somehow wonderful...
Within the aisle of a library, an old lady librarian goes about her work pushing a trolley, while a DIY book wakes on a bookshelf where he gazes at the Romeo and Juliet screenplay book.
A man is sitting alone in an "ahwa" — a traditional Egyptian coffee shop, playing chess by himself. He sits there staring at the chessboard contemplating the black and white pieces as he projects his inner struggles onto the chess game.
Super Girls is a short 3d stylized animation that is about the relationship between a single super woman mother and her daughter who has also super powers. It's about the relationship a mother ought to have with her daughter no matter how super she is.
A heroic cowboy must prevent a squad of armed goons from escaping the town after a bank heist. At least, that's what young Adam believes he must do in his imagination.
On the shores of the great lake of Africa, a virtuous young warrior is gifted with superhuman powers, powers that act to test his integrity and mores.
Our story begins on a chicken farm in the Karoo. We are introduced to the loud and obnoxious Clucky who wakes all of the chickens up.
The passport of Mallam Ilia tells the story of love, vengeance and conquest set in ancient Northern Nigeria in the 19th century.
Salim, a child of immense imagination, suffering from inequality within his family, composed of his grandmother and sister Farida. He does all the work, unlike his sister, who only has to study.
The story plays on how the innocence (children) are being used for the purpose to fight in a purposeless war that is based on the true facts of a Warlord named Joseph Kony in Northern Uganda.
The king of mangou kingdom wage a war against the midi kingdom. Then he goes to the spirit master to ask for help.
A short story that explores the journey to the top. A journey filled with many distractions, mystery and uncertainty.
A young student accustomed to foolish plans that he often narrowly misses, finds himself stuck in front of his creditors during a rather complicated day.
Dotty lives alone in her house, finding comfort in her daily knitting routine. When she knits she enters a world where her memories come to life.
The story of a little girl who went on to belong in a place she was not born in.
This was an audio visual experiment to explore what a collage animated video would look like. The audio happened by accident when going through Mzee Jomo's old speeches and a voice message a friend sent me were mixed together.
The film is about how everyone took everything for granted before the pandemic. How the little things in life is what matters most. How we never realize what we have until it is lost. What we miss and what we should appreciate in life after all of this is over.
Blunder is about a couple who planned to get married before lockdown was introduced, with all the rules and regulations everything came to pause however the girlfriend's uncles decided to show up for lobola negotiations.
They say this is the new norm, that things will be okay. At first, it's all fun and games, but time has a way of draining you. This is the story of a single mother in the time of Corona, stuck, with no choice but to survive.
Jo and Bec are sisters and can only communicate through video calls during lockdown. Jo has not been taking Bec's calls because she is hiding something. Lockdown has been more dangerous for Jo than Bec realises.
Loop is a short film highlighting the negative effect of domestic violence on children exposed to such violence during the lock down.
With the lockdown measures being enforced, vulnerable women and young girls are put in a position where the life-threatening outside is safer than their own homes and at times forced to make difficult choices.
Moyo tells the story of Achieng, a young single mother working as an underpaid nurse in Mbagathi Hospital, Nairobi. She struggles with the grim financial, mental and physical realities of being a single mother, and the pressures of being a front-line, essential worker.
The Tempest is a short film about a dancer DavillahS expressing how Covid-19 has changed her family and personal life, as well as millions of other lives across the globe.
Rhema and Erica are Junior high school students whose education has been interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. The differences in their economic situations have directly altered the course of their education and how they cope with the current times.
Using hundreds of silhouettes of stone-slinging protestors, this powerful silent film explores the symbolic gestures that have marked the Palestinian uprisings.
Documentary exploring the way in which Gaza's social and political past has been recorded across the decades through photography.
Coming-of-age feature exploring the isolation faced by a refugee mother and her daughter as they await their claimant hearing in Toronto, Canada.
A touching portrait of the last remaining factory in Palestine to produce the keffiyeh, an iconic symbol of Palestine and its heritage.
On a quest to complete their 1990 World Cup album, two young brothers are determined to find 'Maradona's legs', the last missing sticker.
Eye-opening documentary of two farmers in the West Bank, one Israeli and one Palestinian, farming the same land but with unequal access to water resources.
Night after night Erik works alone in his bakery. His only company is the late-night radio show, which he persistently attempts to get through to to be honoured "Joker of the Week".
Pedro has found a new job. A kind of strange one, but these days, he can't afford to be fussy. It's a real chance! Anyway, he's never been the kind of getting cold feet …
After the high-profile killing of Damilola Taylor, Cornelius' family move out of London. But when they discover their new town is run by racists, Cornelius takes a drastic step to survive.
EDNA is animation which was inspired by the refugee crisis, where Macedonia played the unfortunate role of a transit country; in essence it is a love story set in a very unusual circumstances.
A woman is locked in her home with an egg. She eats the egg, she repents. She kills it. She lets the egg die of hunger.
In a small village of the North of France, an attack alert has been set off due to the combination of two events: the beginning of the hunting season and an argument between drunk Polish workers.
Evoking the Olympic marathon in Rome 1960 in which Ethiopian Abebe Bikila won Africa's first gold medal, running barefoot and becoming a sporting legend and symbol of an Africa freeing itself from colonialism in the process.
Secretly she is filming everything. In a surreal apartment a cougar, a guest, a child and promises of a dog – if the child plays along.
Ziad, a Palestinian day laborer, is denied entry into Israel for work that day. The East Jerusalem border guards offer no explanation. Not wanting to return home empty handed after promising his daughter meat for dinner, he needs to get creative.
Yanni's mum is on her way to audition for a role as Shakespeare's Viola, when she learns that her young son has been left home alone.
Olda (17) is an accused waiting for his trial in a detention centre for juveniles. The monotone prison life is gradually intertwined with memories of a police reconstruction.
On the 20th of December, 1989, a few days after Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's bloody repression in Timisoara, a father's quiet evening turns to sheer ordeal as he finds out that his little son has mailed a letter of wishes to Santa.
Professional weightlifter Petro is preparing for an important competition. But before the competition, he receives tragic news that force him to make a difficult decision. Petro's inner conflict makes him into more than just a mechanical bundle of muscles.
A night. A car. A woman in trouble. A call.
What would happen in the life of Romeo and Juliet if they had not died adolescents? How would their days be at 90?
Louis, a painter, and his wife Michelle have recently experienced some strange events. The universe around them seems to be changing. Slowly, furniture, objects, and people lose their realism. They come apart, sometimes they disintegrate.
Chris, an autistic young man who camouflages his obsession with dive bombers, gets by with the help of Hans, the little guy who lives in his head and translates Chris's social scripts for him.
Barry, a mild mannered fool from somewhere in the Northwest attempts to elicit the help of his ex-girlfriend after brutally murdering his grandmother with a hammer.
Happy newlyweds Ida and Jura are expecting a child. Ida suddenly finds out that the child will be special. She is unsure of how Jura will react when he learns the news, or what life with an extraordinary child will bring.
Two women are kidnapping a dubious rightwing politician by elegantly stealing his car with him caught in the boot. What seems like a supposedly harmless ride at first glance turns into a plan of revenge.
Tired of being a banal architectural ornament, a sculpture runs away from the Louvre to confront real life on the streets of Paris.
A docufiction that tells the story of bird extinction from the point of view of northern bald ibis, and the reintroduction project attempting to bring this species back in Europe.
Explores the idea of rewatching the story of your entire life play out in front of you. Every moment that shaped your life in some way.
Adam starts of his work from home life well, but quickly lets things fall apart.
A valiant hero battles a dastardly evil.
Conor and Brendan try their best to relive the pub experience remotely.
An office group of colleagues deal with the difficulties of working from home with an unusual mix of boss and employees.
Sisters Maggie and Nora are from the Irish Traveller community – an indigenous nomadic ethnic minority. Every Summer, they rekindle their connection with the land.
Big Mac and his Dad, Frank, live a lonely life in the heart of West Kerry. He seeks acceptance of himself, through his father.
A comedy about depression. Don't worry, it's about love too.
An imaginative 7 year old discovers that his teenage sibling is transgender.
Kobby arrives late to his nephew's naming ceremony. How could he have missed such an important event? But Kobby has a secret – and a plan.
As a single mother unable to read or write, Usha finds herself drawn to her children's English teacher in ways she never knew possible.
One day the zebra ran against a tree.
With the outbreak of coronavirus, Chinese students were attacked because of wearing face mask. Therefore, to prevent this happening, Lee prepares a spicy spray with her.
A social worker, John, is invited to celebrate Christmas in his new place of work: Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital. When he arrives, he finds he is sitting between a notorious gangster, and a 13-time serial killer, neither of whom seem interested in celebrating.
Two classmates develop a print in their college darkroom after-hours. Tensions are exposed.
Starting hormone replacement therapy lowers the voice and can damage singing abilities permanently; 'down there the seafolk live' attempts to convey the sacrifice that lies within the decision to transition as a transgender performer.
A vegan and a werewolf fall in love.
A young boy flees with his family from Nazi Germany on Kristallnacht to Czechoslovakia, but the Nazis follow, and he escapes as his parents send him on a Kindertransport train to England.
Made under lockdown conditions in her home country of Italy, Yergalem Carimini's short film "La Volpe" is an amazing example of a single location film. Yergalem is in her second year of study on BA (Hons) Film at Plymouth College of Art.
Can relationships succeed when memories are controlled by the leaders of a dystopian society.
A nurse reflects on her work during the pandemic in China.
Three childhood friends attempt to rekindle their friendship after years of separation, the three individuals gradually understand that any continuation of this friendship is obsolete.
What to do when you are a skint student with a passion for fashion but a hate for waste.
A personal visual and aural journey exploring the past 6 years of life.
Rock bottom is a hard place to get back up from.
Venture into the dreams of lone spinster Valerie, where she meets Enid. Could this be the start of an unlikely friendship?
Escape the Ordinary is the story of a young woman travelling through time and space to a new world.
A continuous sequence of action, capturing the beautiful idiosyncrasies of people, bodies, communities and landscapes.
A supermarket at the end of the day. While a few customers are finishing their groceries, a hooded intruder breaks into the store.
Tiziano wants to go to the Cinecittà World amusement park at all costs to visit the Old West. Will what he finds there be different to what he'd imagined?
It's a beautiful day in Margery Daw, the land where the Dollykins live. Red, Yellow and Blue live in a house and go for a walk in the forest.
After a theatre student writes LGBT+ characters in her zombie apocalypse play, her lecturer rebukes her for just following the latest trend.
Bonds are tested when Agnes meets her ex for the first time since they broke up.
Can you be Muslim and gay? A bereaved fiancé goes on a deeply personal journey in this documentary to try and understand the challenges of what it's like to be queer and Muslim, in the hope of preventing another young LGBT+ person taking their own life.
A young, non-binary visitor to London returns to their Airbnb to find an older gay man has moved in while they were out. In a small studio flat over one turbulent night, Orin and Anto confront the queer generation gap and decide to make space for each other.
Since 1984, METRO Charity has been providing support and services for the LGBT community in Greenwich and south-east London; this documentary film follows Our History.
Pink and blue is a short animated documentary exploring the life of a transgender man, their experiences of growing up, feeling different, and their coming out story.
A message from the future. Spoken by the collective digital voice of a group of queer artists and activists, this collaborative project speculates about the possibilities of a temporality yet to come.
Gender-fluid dance story. What if you can be all of who you are and still allow another? That, just for one night, judgement no longer exists? What if love isn't a gender, it's a swivel of the heart?
A loud and colourful, a young man thrust into a strange journey filled with animated male nudity exploring queer masculinities and online culture.
This documentary tells the story of Arcoiris, a group of LGBT+ human rights defenders in Honduras. In recent years, the organisation has faced mounting attacks and threats following relentless public abuse and stigmatisation.
On a desolate Northern Ireland border, a man begins a desperate search for his family, knowing the future he feared is nigh.
A series of vignettes celebrating love, community, protest and joy to remind us that though our hope may diminish it is reborn in our children.
The unexpected arrival of her mother and socialist brother threatens a Conservative candidate's ambition to become the first female British-Chinese MP.
A reimagining of the Welsh legend of King Arthur, told by boys growing up in the Valleys with the quest of their own lives ahead of them.
After her neighbours become suddenly immortal, a young girl finds the Grim Reaper locked in a barn and amenable to making a deal for his freedom.
Under the influence of dangerous right-wing propaganda and his domineering father, a lonely school caretaker looks for connection.
The return of the Goddess Astarte triggers an exploration of female sexuality through the personal fantasies of three women.
Club security guard and former skinhead Hank reluctantly offers homeless gay teenager Isaac a place to stay for one tense night.
Tracing the experiences of Jamaican-born Brits who have been forcibly returned to Jamaica, MOTHERLAND explores what it really means for someone to "go back home".
In the heat of a community gym's sauna, a disparate group of Londoners gather nightly to open up about community, connection and faith.
A fists-bared, kickboxing, bleeding-nose look at who and what makes women angry right now – and what they do about it.
In a rallying cry of protest, a young woman exposes the insidious ways brands use social media to disguise their true intentions.
A marriage is tested when the patriotic husband's success in a citizenship challenge means he will soon be turned into a swan.
Exploring the conversation black people face when communicating their racial experience to white partners through a dynamic fusion of dance and dialogue.
The discovery of a healing tree brings hope to a Bolivian migrant whose son is close to death from plastic pollution.
Seeing immigration from the perspective of a migrant, a Polish man describes what his countrymen people have contributed to the UK.
After the dog days, a coming storm approaches during a sudden road trip to a distant island for a funeral. While the deceased is buried in haste, a man makes detour through Aegean Turkey: a dip in the sea, a dream at a town hotel, a light sleep at a hammam, a visit to the coffin-maker.
A modern parable about a woman who sees a homeless man literally sinking into the pavement and her attempts to save him in an indifferent world.