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Home > Filmmaker Resources and Information > Shorts
The Oscars
Shortlists for the categories Best Animated Short and Best Live Action Short are made up of prizewinners from the following festivals. Note that this list of festivals may change without notice.
Academia de Las Artes y Ciencias Cinematograficas de Espańa
Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma (César)
Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television (Genie)
Ann Arbor (Michigan) Film Festival
Annecy Festival International Du Cinema D'animation
Aspen Shortsfest
Athens (Ohio) International Film Festival
Atlanta Film Festival
Austin Film Festival
Berlin International Film Festival
Bermuda International Film Festival
Bilbao International Festival of Documentary & Short Films
Black Maria Film Festival
British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards
Cannes Festival International Du Film
Cartagena International Film Festival
Chicago International Children's Film Festival
Chicago International Film Festival
Cinanima International Animation Film Festival
Cinequest Film Festival
Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival
Cracow International Festival of Short Films
David Di Donatello Award
European Film Awards
Festival de Cine de Huesca
Flickerfest
Florida Film Festival
Foyle Film Festival
Gijon International Film Festival for Young People
The Hamptons International Film Festival
Hiroshima International Animation Festival
India International Film Festival
Locarno International Film Festival
Los Angeles Film Festival
Los Angeles International Short Film Festival
Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival
Melbourne International Film Festival
Montreal International Festival of New Cinema
Montreal World Film Festival
Nashville Film Festival
Oberhausen International Short Film Festival
Ottawa International Animation Festival
Palm Springs International Short Film Festival
Rhode Island International Film Festival
San Francisco International Film Festival
Santa Barbara International Film Festival
Short Shorts Film Festival
Shorts International Film Festival
Siggraph
Slamdance Film Festival
St. Louis International Film Festival
Stuttgart International Animation Festival
Sundance Film Festival
Sydney Film Festival
Tampere Film Festival
Toronto Worldwide Short Film Festival
Turin International Film Festival of Young Cinema
Uppsala International Short Film Festival
USA Film Festival
Venice International Film Festival
World Animation Celebration (Los Angeles)
Zagreb World Festival Of Animated Films
How long is a piece of film?
by John Hardwick
British short films are a thriving and important part of this country's cultural production. They are produced here in large numbers and exhibited at festivals all over the world where they inform, entertain and frequently win prizes. If overseas audiences and juries are to be believed the British are considered to be good at making shorts. This is a flattering and healthy situation to be in and it is helpful to consider what has made it possible.
Firstly, funding in this country for shorts tends to be relatively accessible and adventurous (despite the demise of organisations such as the much missed BFI Production). Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, the brief duration of the short film tends to encourage an idiosyncratic and energetic approach to filmmaking. This creative freedom naturally compares favourably to the stricter conventions that surround the full length feature.
With notable exceptions, feature film production in Britain has tended to mould itself around the monumental influence of its literary and theatrical antecedants. This has given rise to the prevailing orthodoxy that a feature film is a 90 minute morality tale told in three acts. A feature film, for many of us therefore, is merely a play with close ups.
Short films, on the other hand, have managed to avoid much of this narrative orthodoxy. Perhaps short films are more comparable to poetry than to plays. In the same way that poetry can bend language and suggest (rather than declare) meaning, short films are able to explore the vocabulary of cinema and emphasise mood over narrative structure. Clearly there are many ways to skin a cat but short films do tend to revolve around the single idea or event. A woman wakes up to discover she has become monochromatic in a world that remains coloured; a man has to balance caring for his son against attending a job interview. Both these scenarios are simple, contained cameos - an idea worked out, a portrait concluded - and both have cut their cloth correctly. They are ideas that wouldn't make the finishing line in a feature film but work well enough for the duration of a short.
Short films work best when they are courageous and prepared to experiment. A short film does not have to tell a story. It can be a rant, a joke, a journey, an essay, a poem, a portrait, a painting, a piss take.
Short films also work well clubbed together and always have done. From the early 8mm film societies where hobbyists would gather to view each other's home movies to the underground cinema clubs that currently blend film, video, performance and polemic, the short has always been the tool of the personal filmmaker as opposed to the industrial filmmaker. Voices that are too idiosyncratic for the multiplexes find a raucous and demanding audience in the backrooms of pubs, and increasingly, in art galleries. Admittedly, the art gallery audiences are more reverential than raucous but they still represent the public hunger for innovative film and video work.
At the other end of the scale, cinemas have become passive, entertainment-obsessed palaces of consumption. Their mania for movie stars and big profits has resulted in the market being choked with identikit films that leave the viewer seriously undernourished.
It's high time we stopped genuflecting before the golden temple of features and realised instead that there are many different filmmaking and film viewing possibilities now available to us in this country.
We would do well to skip the local multiplex every once in a while in favour of our nearest film club. Whether it be in the back of a night club or the front of a disused shop, these societies provide some of the best places to satisfy our desire for original, provocative filmmaking. Filmmaking that showcases some of the best, least celebrated cinema talent in the UK.
John Hardwick makes short films, pop videos and adverts.
CINEMA EXTREME
Run by The Bureau on behalf of The UK Film Council and Filmfour, this is a high-end scheme aimed at providing experienced and distincitive shorts directors with the final piece of experience they need to graduate to feature films.
www.thebureau.co.uk/schevents/fr_schemes.html
DIGITAL SHORTS AND DIGITAL NATION
The UK Film Council runs these two national shorts schemes in order to nurture and develop talent utilising digital technology. Both schemes are managed by the respective Regional or National Screen Agency.
www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/digitalshortdigitalnation
REEL NORTH
Reel North is the award-winning short film showcase produced by students and staff at the International Media Centre, University of Salford, and broadcasting since 2003 on Channel M, the city-television station for Manchester, UK.
www.reelnorth.co.uk
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