Shasha Movies presents Hijra, a special programme created for an RCA MA Architecture course, ‘Hijra’, taught by Sumayya Vally & Shumi Bose. Fundamentally, architecture and cinema are both concerned with space—the film programme is a resource which can be used to teach spatial practices.
Loki, Censor, Sex Education, The Afterlight, A Banquet, We Are Lady Parts - what do the directors of these films and TV have in common? They all showed early shorts at LSFF. See where their careers started at this special screening with Q&A.
Audiovisual duo m a t e k o i take over the ICA theatre on opening night with an otherworldly combination of strobing visuals and live electronics, triggering a bizarre hallucinatory dreamscape. With DJ set from Richard Fearless (Death in Vegas).
Humour is subjective, but a few of us have fed into our annual opening night programme of comedy shorts, so expect to LOL at least once. It takes particular skill to make a short truly funny - a mix of empathy, chaos and a dose of schadenfreude, or something so bizarre that you find yourself cry-laughing.
An LSFF staple for almost two decades, our Lo-Budget Mayhem programme is goldmine of unadulterated creativity, with last year’s winner (Hugh Clegg’s What I Imagined the dying fly, with the broken leg, was feeling) made for the princely sum of £1.84.
A sensual, sinuous selection of animation from across the world, loosely drawn together through themes of death, incarceration, transcendence and fantasy worlds from another plane of existence.
This sublime collection of stories explores heart-wrenching, obsessive, and occasionally kinky moments of intimacy in all its forms; euphoric relationships, misguided longing, and stubborn life-long compatibility. Flirtatious and daring, these narratives offer so much more than the conformist love stories we’ve all seen before.
In this selection of International New Shorts, Grandparents appear out of the blue to keep familial memory from disappearing, a mother tries to help her client get through his trauma, while another tries to find any means necessary to provide for her child.
Stone Club traverse Britain and Ireland’s ancient landscapes via the medium of shorts. From mysterious apparitions in Cymru, sculptural monoliths on the misty moors of Kernow, and a bouncy Stonehenge travelling across the UK.
Where there’s dancing and music, the community isn’t far away. In this eclectic celebration of trances, dances, raves and moves we see troupes and powerful duos in safe, inclusive spaces; dance as a battleground, as a place for shedding and self-expression.
In the first of this year’s Documentary programmes, collective radical activism comes to the fore across the world and across decades. Collectives can change the world, and these documentary shorts present ideas through radical use of image and idea; the simple forms of bending lights, or in surviving a lightning strike.
A mixed bag of emotions in this selection of International New Shorts, featuring the highs and lows of an unrequited romance and the tenderness of family moments that will remain in a collective memory for generations.
Wander out of time and self as these shorts guide you through altered states of being. Hallucinatory trips, macabre streams of consciousness, PTSD explored via art therapy, mass hysteria and the physical deterioration of a broken brain.
How do we find our peace when there is no resolution to our pain? Featuring films from Lebanon, Estonia, and the UK, this collection of shorts picks at our scabs of loss and misunderstanding, while knowing all the while that the only way to heal is to live.
Experiments of ideas and form can be unearthed in this collection of sci-fi new shorts, where dystopian world-building collides with our own projected wonders, fears and insecurities.
In Bonded 2.0, we consider dynamics of care and the boundaries between friend, family and carer. A look at the needs and desires of those who raise us and care for us and non-traditional family dynamics.
A selection of rarely-seen political Polish animations from the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Curated by filmmaker and academic Michał Mróz and with the kind support of the Polish Institute, we’re delighted to bring these rare films to LSFF and reflect upon the stories of the animators working throughout decades of Polish history.
See the best super 8 shorts made for Straight 8’s 2022 competition. Each film is made on just one roll of super 8, without any editing or post-production, with no restriction on content or genre. No retakes, no editing, no grade, no post-production at all.
Building an intimate and powerful portrait of many landscapes, from the mountains of Greece to the canals of the UK, these filmmakers quietly observe their surroundings and ask; do we really belong to our local surroundings when nature ultimately (re)claims that space?
This programme of shorts explores how space, both earthly and fantastical, material and digital, becomes a site of queer exploration, collecting a variety of LGBTQIA+ stories that are testament to the heterogeneity of the queer experience.
Mind-bending, enchanting psychedelia from Peter Strickland and Susanne Deeken meet underground fairytales and an ode to Dario Argento. Surrender your senses to a programme that harks back to 70s folk horror, the art of Leonora Carrington and Ovid’s Metamorphosis.
Looking beyond borders, here we find stories from the Black British experience in a world of fairytales and freedom. In this second iteration of Black Country, we experience the friendships and adventures unfolding outside of capitals.
Zodiac Film Club presents Sofia Bohdanowicz's Maison du Bonheur, a documentary portrait of the day-to-day life of a 77 year old Parisian astrologer. Accompanying the film are three astrologically-titled shorts that take horoscopes as their point of inspiration.
The sharing and preservation of land is our vestige of hope; still we annex and destroy. This anthology of shorts muses on the implications of territories, from the colonial collecting practices of insects to the tragicomedy of strangers sharing public spaces.
Privilege is at times, or perhaps most of the time, taken for granted, whether historically proven or in an attempt to preserve history. This selection of International New Shorts probes myriad perspectives of privilege, from those who seek to maintain the status quo and those who fight to disrupt it.
In this session we speak to industry organisations and community groups which offer support to filmmakers in more ways than one. Learn about the initiatives, schemes and grants that think and work outside the box to support filmmakers with all elements of development and production.
Candice Onyeama is an award-winning, Nigerian-British screenwriter and filmmaker.In this session Candice cuts through the noise, and gives a masterclass in best practice to writing a treatment which best expresses your vision and direction.
Our networking drinks sessions are open to all, every weekday evening during the festival. Today’s drinks our hosted by The Pitch Film Fund. Join your fellow LSFF filmmakers, industry workers, special guests and sponsors for a complimentary drink after a day of festival-going.
Prepare to be haunted by the peculiar, as strange figures linger in darkened doorways and eternal hunger seeks vengeance upon English suburbs. An unsettling mix of accursed shorts, a journey that takes us from a New Zealand manor house to a Colombian market.
Highlighting work by filmmakers of East and Southeast Asian heritage, Not Too Sweet explores the twisty, tangy, melty role of food across ESEA cultures. With a limited-edition supper club from Rahel Stephanie of eat with sp00ns.
Can artificial intelligences make cinema? If they do, is it really cinema? And what would it look like? ALT/KINO presents a programme of experimental films made with algorithms, machine learning, and A.I. that explore these questions and much more.
A live soundtrack presentation of Nina Danino’s Solitude, a study of Velvet Underground singer Nico accompanied by Graham ‘Dids’ Dowdall aka Gagarin. Gagarin collaborated with Nico over many years, and here performs a new score for Nina’s work.
Prepare for reflexivity, repetition and paradox in this shorts programme, from a strangely touching tribute to Britain's most prolific background actor to a curious family hair-dyeing ritual.
Not all streaming platforms are equal - and not all are the right one for your film. Join the session to hear how programmers curate their platforms, all of the information to include when you submit your film, and how to catch attention from programmers when you least expect it.
For many artist filmmakers, the most important thing is to gain clarity on funding guidelines, expectations and crucially, what funders are looking for. This session offers an accessible and clear guide to the opportunities available including for artists’ moving image.
Archive isn’t just used for historical storytelling - sometimes the most impactful filmmaking subtly weaves footage and imagery to evoke the wide range of emotions and perspectives brought forward by nostalgia. How to make an impact with the use of archive footage in your filmmaking?
Open to all, every weekday evening during the festival. Join your fellow LSFF filmmakers, industry workers, special guests and sponsors for a complimentary drink after a day of festival-going.
The thrill of the chase isn’t as much fun if you’re the target. Kidnapping, revenge, and the moral dilemma of stealing life-saving medication. Gangsters, video dating, and… alpacas. Get your pulse rate up with our annual selection of pulpy shorts, from the comedic to the unsettling.
In this selection of International New Shorts, we see In French actress Maria Schneider give an interview for the TV show Cinéma Cinémas in 1983. Decades later, a performer interprets Mary Wigman’s 1926 performance piece Hexentanz.
A rare screening of Getting Close to Nothing, a 1994 VHS video zine documenting London’s DIY music scene via lo-fi gig footage, music videos and interviews; a record of a pre-Britpop era when riot grrrls were to the front. Followed by live bands and panel.
Featuring films from the Otherness Archive, a visual archive documenting queer films and its pioneers, these works exemplify a breadth of filmic play, experimentation, and inventiveness. As Biting The Image evidences: the marriage between refusing to live by a cisheteronormative standard and moving image is a fertile and relevant one.
In this selection of new International Shorts government agent during Chile’s dictatorship’s secret life reveals grim fractures between mind and country, and a woman returns to her childhood home during the pandemic.
These shorts tell tales of the inherent independence, and some-time emptiness, of life in isolation. A hundred thousand walruses seek refuge on a remote Siberian archipelago, and music elicits memories of a motherland.
How do we define ‘experimental’ filmmaking? Speaking to those who challenge cinematic conventions and explore non-narrative forms, we present a conversation around making, framing and experiencing the impossible.
Spotlight on the senior camera crew who work to determine the look and visual language of films. This panel assembles and celebrates the work of a group of cinematographers from the global majority who are making major moves in the film & TV industry.
Open to all, every weekday evening during the festival. Join your fellow LSFF filmmakers, industry workers, special guests and sponsors for a complimentary drink after a day of festival-going. Supported by Script Compass.
A special New Shorts programme in association with Underscore Studios, with a focus on elevating working class stories, told by rising working class stars in filmmaking. The programme will be followed by a conversation with the filmmakers, and writer and broadcaster, Danny Leigh.
A series of brilliant, London-centric short films; The fate of a historic fish market rests on a solitary seal, a barbed wire tree sparks an unlikely friendship, and a photographer, revered for capturing London’s Windrush generation, yearns to escape to the country.
A waiting room, a waiting list, a bed. This programme of moving image work, curated by artist Annie Crabtree and featuring their film Tell me, how do I feel?, imagines alternative modes of collective care and individual agency via the racial and queer politics of the sick body.
Our celebrated accessible comedy showcase returns once again, hosted by Sketch Night MC extraordinaire, Gem Carmella (Short Sighted Cinema) and introducing an alternating parade of shorts and live stand-up comedy sets.
How does one survive a context where the death drive contaminates everything? With the political and social degradation that has been taking place in Brazil since the coup d’état in 2016, many Brazilian filmmakers have chosen to react and act through a life drive.
Sometimes we play one role too many. In this selection of International New Shorts, find stories of labour and the struggle for survival and love in the urban sprawl. A simulated firing at a management training day brings up uncomfortable emotions, and a young girl finds belonging in a punk band.
Confronting miseries of being misunderstood and swallowed by greed and pride, we understand that loss is part of life. And in these moments, instead of grieving, we become grief.
The work and on-set presence of intimacy coordinators has become increasingly vital and visible in recent years. This panel will break down exactly what the role entails, explore the context in which they work, especially at a time of major reckoning with sexual conduct and on-set ethics within the screen industries and beyond.
When BBC’s Chloe hit the small screen earlier this year, we were immediately drawn in by the modern-day intrigue and thrills in its magnetic, swirling take on online obsession, influencer culture and identity fraud. For this exclusive panel discussion, we sit down with the show’s director and writers to discuss Chloe’s place within their careers and creative paths,
Open to all, every weekday evening during the festival. Join your fellow LSFF filmmakers, industry workers, special guests and sponsors for a complimentary drink after a day of festival-going. Supported by Directors UK.
Long-time collaborators composer Cassie Kinoshi and visual artist Anne Verheij join us at LSFF for an in-depth exploration of their experimental film and immersive installation work together so far.
When it comes to meals, boy do we take comfort in the repetition, the routine, traditions and table arrangements, all made in the name of gathering and feasting. Join us for a T A P E Supper Club with a screening of food-themed films folded into the mix.
Presented by pop-up collective Mondo Nights, experience 90 minutes of strange and cautionary filmmaking from both sides of the Iron Curtain. On one side, the eerie, infamous films from the UK’s Central Office for Information and on the other, the maverick advertising of the USSR ad director Harry Egipt.
A creative collaboration between nationwide arts festival Tour de Moon (part of Unboxed: Creativity in the UK) and the LSFF to provide a platform for young creatives, for audiences to experience a multiplicity of incredible creativity, and an out-of-this-world night out.
In these International Competition shorts, a mother has an unusual ritual of returning to her old family home to care for stray cats. Ghosts of destruction and exploitation reveal themselves in a phantasmagoric play of the landscape of the south of Amazonia.
While we digest Flux Gourmet, we delve into the deliciously surreal and corporeal worlds of seminal filmmaker Peter Strickland with a full retrospective of his short film works. A friend of LSFF since the early days of the Halloween Society, Peter will join us in conversation with a special guest.
In LSFF tradition, this year’s programme doesn't shy away from the gore, the macabre, or the ludicrous. Join us to discover the psychedelic mind of an elderly woman on her search for liberation, to the dark and stillness nights where killers and missing teeth lurk.
Traversing a rapidly developing Thai neighbourhood, a disused Scottish stadium, and an ancient Indian forest, this programme of shorts from around the globe treats both personal and national identity with fluidity, examining how the politics of the street inform the politics of being.
Following decades of decline, Britain’s trade union movement is in a period of rejuvenation. This collection of archive film, curated by Karl Hansen (Assistant Editor, Tribune magazine), explores the rise, decline and rebirth of the trade union movement, the ordinary men and women who have organised through them to fight for improved pay and conditions.
A coming-of-age programme with a difference, this International New Shorts programme deals with the uncomfortable global reality of children forced to grow up too fast. Labour, competition, social stigma - how can children heal, or adults look inwards to heal their own inner child?
In solidarity with the feminist revolution in Iran, this programmed curated by artist and filmmaker Maryam Tafakory brings together artists and films that explore personal and collective histories and memories – moving back and forth between past and present, between words, bodies, streets, geographies that we leave behind without ever leaving.
We are constantly striving for autonomy, but having siblings can make things more difficult. Between old records and unwelcome road trips filled with loud defiance and anger, grief can serve as a sharp reminder of who we are alongside them.
A selection of new international d/Deaf shorts, curated by access consultant and curator Charlie Little. This programme explores the multitude of d/Deaf and disabled perspectives, interpreted by filmmakers and artists in myriad experimental and sonic forms.
Humour is subjective, but a few of us have fed into our annual opening night programme of comedy shorts, so expect to LOL at least once. It takes particular skill to make a short truly funny - a mix of empathy, chaos and a dose of schadenfreude, or something so bizarre that you find yourself cry-laughing.
We’re delighted to welcome Canadian filmmaker Kazik Radwanski to LSFF for a retrospective of his short film works. A founder of MDFF (Medium Density Fibreboard Films), a production and distribution company that also functions as a film collective, Kazik has been heralded as one of the progenitors of the Toronto New Wave.
Join us for our annual LSFF awards ceremony, share a drink and enjoy some live DJs. With the support of Script Compass.
Hurry on home to our programme of shorts that puts the digit in digital, with queer connections in all directions: intergenerational, across distance, across media. Full of DIY spirit, these films create a continuity from 1974 to 2021: an experimental mood that moves bodies to music, reaching across the cut and through the frame to find each other.
Welcome to the WEIRD. For your safety, please only expect experiences of the wacky kind. You might burst into song or lose your rabbit brother but have no fear, for the Boob Fairymight pay you a visit (don’t ask).
Following the theatrical release of Miryam Charles’s feature debut and very personal story Cette Maison, we revisit Charles’s short films. Too powerful and certain to be simply called experimental, the shorts of the Haitian-Quebecois filmmaker unravel, and to an extent unleash, myriad stories.
Be forewarned, this isn’t a horror programme, at least not in the conventional sense - but don’t venture too far into the woods. These films creep around the edge of reality, of the shadowy figure outlined in the doorway, the unfurling of a mysterious scroll.
Acclaimed BAFTA winning Cornish filmmaker Mark Jenkin (ENYS MEN, BAIT) presents a retrospective of his short form works in partnership with BFI Southbank. Continually experimenting with form, these films delineate his transition from digital to the highly distinctive, analogue techniques for which he is celebrated
