Short film funded projects by region
South West
Blackout
Producer: Solomon Golding
Writer: Chris Urch
Director: Chris Urch
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: BLACKOUT is a raw, unflinching and honest short film that gets under the skin of a seemingly content gay relationship, and how one event can pull apart all that someone knew in an instant.
For Better
Producer: Andrew Harmer
Writer: Kitty Percy
Director: Kitty Percy
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: Jeanine attempts to fix her loneliness by standing beside an A-road in a wedding dress with a sign saying ‘MARRY ME’, but finds a better solution in an unexpected place…
In His Name
Producer: Alysha Christal
Writer: Shakira Newton
Director: Shakira Newton
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: After an intense day at the funeral of his father, a young mixed-race man, Jordan, arrives at what was once his second home with his dad: the local pub. At the wake, despite attempts to ignore his emotions and focus on celebrating his dad’s legacy, some wayward racial comments by the pub’s regulars ignite chaos.
Poll Pri
Producer: Bex Rose
Writer: Edward Rowe
Director: Edward Rowe
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: Following in his dad’s footsteps, and his fathers before him, young father-to-be Jori works long shifts hosing clay from the gaping abyss of the pit. But the gap between his wages and the new “affordable” housing in his home village threaten to wash away any dream of supporting his family whilst upholding the traditions of his community.
South East
Charity
Producer: Cian O’Leary
Writer: Stephen T Lally
Director: Stephen T Lally
Genre: Musical
Format: Live action
Description: On the eve of the year 2000, a closeted Irish pop princess, Charity, undergoes a darkly comic assault on the senses as she wrestles with the cost of fame and fortune in her desire to be loved and accepted for who she is.
Chinaman
Producer: Tom Birmingham
Writer: Rob Chiu
Director: Rob Chiu
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: In the late eighties in a run-down Chinese takeaway, on a Northern council estate, a first-generation immigrant battles against an impatient and casually racist customer base.
Dance, then
Producer: Daisy Bryant
Writer: Kate Newman
Director: Philippine Velge
Genre: Other
Format: Live action
Description: With the dead mother that she cared for showing up 40 years younger and in the boot of her car, Iris must accept that she is about to be taken on the ride of her life.
Out of the Peat
Producer: Tate Turnbull
Writer: Tabitha Carless-Frost
Director: Tabitha Carless-Frost
Genre: Horror
Format: Live action
Description: An amateur archaeologist arrives on a desolate peatland in Lancashire, their mind filled with the strange power of the peat-bog waters to preserve organic matter. They have come to excavate the peatland. They have come to exhume a body. But, in digging into the past, they unearth much more than mere relics.
The Folkestone Elephant
Producer: Charlie Phillips
Writer: Astrid Goldsmith
Director: Craig Gell
Genre: Other
Format: Extended reality (XR), immersive
Description: The Folkestone Elephant is a locative AR story, which invites you on an archeological expedition across the North Downs to find the last great Ice Age elephant. As you discover clues and evidence, you are drawn deeper into tales of superstition and animal worship.
The Wickywock and the JubJub Berry
Producer: Ruyi Meer
Writer: Joseph Wallace
Director: Cat Johnston
Genre: Comedy
Format: Animation
Description: In a woodland glade, an exhausted mythical creature is suffering from insomnia. When a small, verbose forest sprite appears and offers a sedative, it sounds like a perfect solution but the fatigued Wickywock is too impatient to heed the Sprite’s tale.
Traces
Producer: Markus Ovre
Writer: Matilda Wallace
Director: Matilda Wallace
Genre: Drama
Format: Animation
Description: The story spans across earth, the moon, and space.
On earth, an astronaut is preparing for the launch of a mission; their voyage is successful and multiple crews arrive in quick succession.
While scientific discoveries abound, the joy of this feat of human innovation and tenacity is shown in stark contrast with the sheer volume of rubbish and debris that is left in their wake. Although the crews themselves return safely to earth, their presence is still felt in the remnants of trash that are scattered across the moon and the atmosphere, which while small in scale cause huge devastation.
Green Grass
Producer: Makenna Guyler
Writer: Aram Atkinson
Director: Aram Atkinson
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: Declan, a disinterested University student, must confront the community he has spent a lifetime denying when he is partnered with the new deaf girl for their class project, Claire, in this coming-of-age drama.
North
Dynamite Dealer
Producer: Casey Shaw
Writer: Jordon Scott Kennedy
Director: Jordon Scott Kennedy
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: When violent visions haunt butcher Alex Ludd, dark ideas of dysmorphia conflict his identity in a World of hyper-masculinity.
Giants
Producer: Dermot O’Dempsey
Writer: Alex Oates
Director: Andy Berriman
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: In-debt and drifting Sandy finds unexpected purpose when conspiracy theorist Don tasks him with destroying the local wind turbine in Cambois, Northumberland.
Habituation
Producer: Thea Burrows
Writer: Joshua Boultwood-Neale
Director: Louisa Rose Mackleston
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: Bedridden I-Kiribati-Yorkshire nun, Amayah, struggles to reconcile with her declining body, until an urgent memo from her brother, the President of Kiribati, provides her with newfound hope, perspective, and purpose.
Into The Betaverse
Producer: Archie Sinclair
Writer: Varun Raman & Tom Hancock
Director: Varun Raman & Tom Hancock
Genre: Comedy
Format: Live action and animation
Description: Lonely Dave resolves to save slacker housemate, Gary, from a VR addiction, but risks their friendship when he questions the validity of Gary’s virtual girlfriend.
Softy
Producer: Chris Lane
Writer: Joshua Reeves
Director: Joshua Reeves
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: Softie is a visceral exploration of a black man’s experience of domestic abuse. Told from the perspective of 12-year-old Camran, the film offers an unusual insight into the ramifications of abuse towards men, and the ripple effect this can have on a child. What lengths will Camran go to get himself and his dad out of a dangerous situation?
The Test
Producer: Keith Farrell
Writer: Hsieh Meng Han
Director: Hsieh Meng Han
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: I-Ling’s experience whilst taking her Life in the UK test reminds her of the difficulties and constraints she faces as an immigrant working hard to get her citizenship.
Uncool
Producer: Daljinder Johal
Writer: Clodagh Chapman
Director: Clodagh Chapman
Genre: Comedy
Format: Live action
Description: 1909. Rural Lancashire. Patently awkward amateur entomologist Martha is on a mission to get in with the cool kids: the Women’s Suffrage Society North West Organising Committee.
Midlands
Hard food
Producer: Tenisha White
Writer: Daniel Alexander
Director: Daniel Alexander
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: A struggling white teenager finds refuge in an unlikely friendship with an elderly Jamaican woman who through the exploration of food and culture inadvertently saves his life.
The Generators
Producer: Cameron Richards
Writer: Georgie Cowan-Turner
Director: Georgie Cowan-Turner
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: In a time of extreme energy poverty, one man struggles to support his ailing husband.
The Statue in the Garden
Producer: Abigail Addison
Writer: Qianhui Yu
Director: Qianhui Yu
Genre: Drama
Format: Animation
Description: When Didi moves from China to Stoke-on-Trent, she finds herself in an unfamiliar and seemingly hostile place. She finds in her new garden a curious, little, ceramic statue, which takes her on a magical journey back through the post-industrial, industrial, and pre-industrial past of the Midlands and its potteries.
We’re All Black Down Here
Producer: Jack Delaney
Writer: Milly Simpson James
Director: James Mellors
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: In racially divided 1950s Britain an Afro-Caribbean miner struggles to find acceptance above ground.
Playground
Producer: Becky Rooney
Writer: Tayla Halfacre
Director: Tayla Halfacre
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: Grace and Jas are forced to define their relationship when faced with an uncomfortable situation among their friends.
London
Happy Snaps
Producer: Chloe King
Writer: Tyro Heath
Director: Tyro Heath
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: On the Isle of Sheppey, two 12-year-old boys try to enjoy a final day together in the place where they grew up. But fears about the future begin to fracture their friendship.
Cameraman
Producer: Precious Mahaga
Writer: Arsalan Motavali
Director: Arsalan Motavali
Genre: Comedy
Format: Live action
Description: In the late 90s, a newly immigrated man desperate to restart his film career must decide whether to spend his family’s limited money to purchase a camera from a stranger.
Tumtum
Producer: Lily Slydel
Writer: Rebecca Ozer
Director: Rebecca Ozer
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: Their conservative Jewish upbringing already in question, non-binary Northerner Alex’s values are shaken when they intersect with a fiery American girl on the holiest day of the year.
The Launch
Producer: Grace Okyere-Fosu & Danielle Goff
Writer: Grace Okyere-Fosu
Director: Steven Olugbenga Eniraiyetan
Genre: Science fiction
Format: Live action
Description: When a woman’s attempt to escape her abusive relationship fails, she takes desperate action to get on The Launch.
The Tobacconist
Producer: Manon Schwich
Writer: Keifer Nyron Taylor
Director: Keifer Nyron Taylor
Genre: Science fiction
Format: Live action
Description: A haunting odyssey across south London following a young British-Jamaican man selling counterfeit tobacco for his mum after deportation threats, encountering a troubled war veteran and the link between yesterday’s and today’s colonialism.
In 2023 BFI NETWORK shortlisted 37 short films projects for funding.
These short film projects have been approved for funding from the 2023 open call, at the time this page was last updated.
Further projects from the 2023 open call will be added to this list once their final funding awards are confirmed.