BFI Future Film Festival 2025 nominations, jury and prizes announced

The BFI today announces the award nominations for the programme of 54 short films that have been selected to screen as part of the BFI Future Film Festival 2025, the UK’s largest festival for young, emerging filmmakers which returns from 20 February to 6 March in-venue at BFI Southbank, online globally for free, and in cinemas UK-wide.

Every film in this year’s festival was eligible for the BFI Future Film Festival Awards 2025, supported by Netflix. Three of the ten awards, Best Film, Best Director and Best New Talent (which looks for the filmmaker who shows the most promise), will be judged by the BFI’s esteemed Festival Jury, consisting of filmmakers Baff Akoto (producer of Queen of Glory), Daisy-May Hudson (director of Holloway), Eloïse King (director of The Shadow Scholars) and Pinny Grylls (director of Grand Theft Hamlet). Nominees across nine award categories will be in the running for ten prizes worth more than £15,000, BFI Player subscriptions and mentorships from industry leaders. The winners will be revealed at the BFI Future Film Festival 2025 Awards Ceremony, which will take place in person on Sunday 23 February at BFI Southbank and be livestreamed on the BFI YouTube channel. 

The UK’s largest festival for young, emerging filmmakers, the BFI Future Film Festival 2025 maintains a tradition of live and in-person screenings and events at BFI Southbank (20 to 23 February) alongside a globally accessible online programme, kindly supported by Main Sponsors Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery’s CrewHQ. For the second year, the festival also includes a UK-wide programme (20 February to 6 March) in collaboration with BFI Film Academy partners and supported by BFI National Lottery funding, featuring events at Chapter Cardiff, Create Studios Swindon, Depot Cinema Lewes, The Engine Room Bridgwater, Glasgow Film Theatre, HOME Manchester, Midlands Arts Centre Birmingham, Nerve Centre Derry-Londonderry, Showroom Cinema Sheffield, The Underdog Cardiff, Vue Swansea and Watershed Bristol.

Announced today, actor and filmmaker Alice Lowe (Prevenge, Timestalker) and theatre and film director Nadia Latif (The Man in my Basement) will take part in headline Hot Spot sessions at BFI Southbank. A highlight of the festival’s events programme, Hot Spot sessions offer the chance to hear directly from established screen professionals about their careers and tips to break into the industry. 

Other special guests offering their insight and advice to up-and-coming filmmakers attending the Festival at BFI Southbank this year include trainees and crew from CrewHQ, Warner Bros Studio Leavesden’s Skills and Training Centre, plus film and TV editors Carly Brown (Doctor Who), Rachel Durance (Hoard) and Catarina Oliveira (Blue Planet II), documentary editor Xanna Ward Dixon (If the Streets Were on Fire), Coal Supper founders James Carbutt and Will Todd, freelance producer Sarah Mavity, illustrator and animator Alice Bloomfield, colour grader Jo Barker, wildlife filmmaker Libby Penman, Black Pear consulting director and executive coach Sarah Wright, directors Leon Oldstrong (The Lies of our Confines) and Alice Russell (If the Streets Were on Fire).

Director and writer Dan Thorburn, writer Mick Ford (After the Flood), writer and climate campaigner Jessica Riches, Climate Spring head of scripted for film and international Len Rowles, Ecologi director for climate science and impact Sam Jackson, The Unit creative lead Jordan Scott Kennedy, Inclusivity Films founder Sarah Leigh, MsMono founder Karla Williams, writer and journalist Danny Leigh, Alliots senior media accountant Samuel Ampah, Reviewed & Cleared solicitor Adrian Dicker, director and choreographer Holly Blakey, movement director Yahamoto, Nowness commissioning director Katie Metcalfe, and Triple Exposure founder Gareth Graham. Speakers taking part in the online events programme accessible worldwide include writer director Aislinn Clarke (Fréwaka), Industry co-creator Mickey Down, writer, performer and filmmaker Amrou Al-Kadhi (Layla), writer director Abel Rubenstein (Life in Love) and filmmaker Libby Burke Wilde (Early Twenties).

Tickets for events taking place at BFI Southbank are on sale now, with each individual session costing £7. 

This year’s programme of 54 shorts made by young filmmakers aged 16 to 25 is an extraordinary collection that tackle a broad range of subjects, from conflicting national identities and our self-perception of gender, to the serenity of nature and our increasingly digital world. These films, which will be available to watch at BFI Southbank between 20 to 23 February and for free worldwide on the BFI YouTube channel from 20 February to 6 March, all display phenomenal skill, creativity, and no doubt showcase many of the film industry’s future stars, both in the UK and internationally.

Prize: Sony FX30 camera + mentoring from writer-director, producer, executive and journalist Catherine Bray + BFI Player subscriptions

• Big Deal (Isabella Thompson, UK 2024) On a quest to smoke weed before leaving for university, two best friends question their relationship, their anxieties about growing up… and how to properly roll a joint.
• Heavy (Eve Grant, UK 2024) A trip to the local supermarket to buy sanitary products forces an awkward and uncomfortable conversation between a teenage girl and her clueless father.
• Requiem (Holly Sharman, UK 2024) A pregnant woman spirals into emotional disarray when faced with the prospect of birthing her child into a world of environmental ruin.
• The Highlands (Oskar Chu, UK 2024) A poetic journey through the Scottish Highlands, capturing the raw beauty of an untamed land and the quiet tension of its transformation.

Prize: £1,500 + mentoring package + BFI Player subscriptions

• Check Please (Shane Chung, USA 2024) Dinner for two turns deadly when a Korean and a Korean-American fight over who gets to pay the check — and who gets to keep their honour.
• Last Night in IRL (Ola Adediji, UK 2024) High tech contact lenses help Annu hide her face behind a filter, until a beautiful unadulterated stranger sparks her interest at a party.
• Morphes (Konstantinos Doxiadis, Greece 2024) A man and a boy find themselves in a mysterious forest at night. Together, they must find their way towards the light.
• We’re not in Essex Anymore (Grac Talbot, UK 2024) A group of friends travel from the London suburbs into the city in this mixed media homage to The Wizard of Oz, exploring themes of female friendship and escapism along the way.

Prize: £1,500 + mentoring package + BFI Player subscriptions

• A Natural Saddest (Sobae Kim, Korea 2024) Bomb and Cherry’s unorthodox business venture of selling pearls is put at risk when the pair fall deeper in love, leading to pain and conflict. 
• Everything Looks Simple From a Distance (Conor Toner, Ireland 2024) With tensions mounting in 1969 Northern Ireland, Noah looks for a higher purpose and decides that a trip to the moon may be the best route to peace.
• Red Lace (Andrea Adame and Paula Trejo Espada, Spain 2024) A young man enters a sinister and mysterious bakery where he must complete a rite of initiation in order to join the strange community of cake lovers who reside there.
• We’re not in Essex Anymore (Grac Talbot, UK 2024) A group of friends travel from the London suburbs into the city in this mixed media homage to The Wizard of Oz, exploring themes of female friendship and escapism along the way.

Prize: £1,500 + mentoring package + BFI Player subscriptions

• Esc (Pamela Simoes Gomez and Olivia Timms, UK 2024) An office rabbit’s monotonous and repetitive work life is forever changed by an encounter with a wild rabbit, prompting visions that send him further into a state of stress and turmoil.
• Red Thumb (Kolya Kishinsky and Geneva Huffman, USA 2024) Intrigue turns to obsession in this stop motion animation when a gardener discovers a pulsating red plant in his yard. As it physically grows so does their connection, leading to a shocking climax.
• Singularity (Conor Mullin, UK 2024) After crash landing on a desolate planet with nothing but a satellite phone, an astronaut is left on hold as he waits for rescue.
• Speak no Evil (Chen Ma, UK 2023) In a world of silence, where countless mouths are thrown into a bottomless black hole each day, one person looks to break free of this curse of censorship and find their voice.
• Unrecognised Character Detected (Song Ye, China 2024) Two alien organisms engage in a playful conflict across diverse territories, but all may not be as it seems…

Prize: £1,500 + mentoring package + BFI Player subscriptions

• How the World is Going to End (Vladislav Motorichev, UK 2024) Members of the UK public speculate about the world’s end, and whether there is anything we can do to stop it.
• If this were Purgatory (Honey Birch, UK 2024) From gossip to identity, politics and romance; follow a group of friends to the club and eavesdrop on the numerous voices in a queer club queue.
• Partition (Matthew Tan, UAE 2024) Migrant workers in the UAE, 90% of the country’s population, occupy small apartments with subdivided rooms as we see what their lives are like.
• Their Accounts (Hannah Hunter, UK 2024) Young people from Ardnamurchan share their thoughts on their home and their culture’s past, present, and future through interviews inspired by traditional oral storytelling.
• Your Voice Only (Rana Wael Matar, Saudi Arabia 2023) A Sudanese man working in an isolated horse stable in Dahban, Saudi Arabia, tries to contact his family after not being able to reach them in three months.

Prize: £1,500 + mentoring package + BFI Player subscriptions

• As Peckham As (Tom Blackman, UK 2024) An ode to Peckham imbued with the neighbourhood’s essence, accompanied by a poem written and performed by Tyreece Asamoah.
• I’m Not Your Baby (Fionnuala McCormack, Ireland 2023) Inspired by the real-life experiences of Irish women, this film showcases the reality of female subjection and sexualisation, told through evocative text messages and intimate visuals.
• Morphes (Konstantinos Doxiadis, Greece 2024) A man and a boy find themselves in a mysterious forest at night. Together, they must find their way towards the light.
• Rebirth (Joel Claudio, UK 2024) A once vibrant neighbourhood is sent into chaos by a tragedy in the community. Two brothers are caught up in the protest, before an ethereal figure arrives embodying the grief of the people.
• The Highlands (Oskar Chu, UK 2024) A poetic journey through the Scottish Highlands, capturing the raw beauty of an untamed land and the quiet tension of its transformation.

Main Prize: £1,500 / Special Mention: £1,000

• A Natural Saddest (Sobae Kim, Korea 2024) Bomb and Cherry’s unorthodox business venture of selling pearls is put at risk when the pair fall deeper in love, leading to pain and conflict. 
• Almost Intangible (Taraneh Esmailian, Iran 2024) When they are asked to improvise during an audition, a husband and wife discover some uncomfortable truths about their relationship in the process.
• Check Please (Shane Chung, USA 2024) Dinner for two turns deadly when a Korean and a Korean-American fight over who gets to pay the check — and who gets to keep their honour.
• Chucks (Anum Ehtesham and Rafay Rockingson, Pakistan 2024) A mother’s wish to fulfil her son’s dream of owning a pair of Chuck Taylors reveal the fragile threads of her double life. Would things ever be the same between the two of them?
• Ivan’s Death (Daniel Sherwood, USA 2024) A judge faces his death and finds himself judging his own life’s actions in this surreal adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich.
• Last Night (Oliver Zel, USA 2024) In the relentless hustle of the New York dating scene, two eligible bachelors break free of the apps and take a chance on each other as a serial ghoster meets his match.
• Morphes (Konstantinos Doxiadis, Greece 2024) A man and a boy find themselves in a mysterious forest at night. Together, they must find their way towards the light.
• My Eyes! (Magnus Hippe Brun, Denmark 2023) Peer pressure and personal limits are put to the test when two game ‘witches’ set a group of new students an orientation week task deep in the woods.
• Period Party (Georgia Brogan, Australia 2024) Bee puts on a party to celebrate the return of her period after a battle with anorexia. While the vagina cake melts, she comes to terms with the messiness of family and womanhood.
• Red Lace (Andrea Adame and Paula Trejo Espada, Spain 2024) A young man enters a sinister and mysterious bakery where he must complete a rite of initiation in order to join the strange community of cake lovers who reside there.
• The Fifth Step (Alexandru Oita, Romania 2023) A man survives incarceration by holding on to the memories of his imprisoned wife. Hoping to see her again upon his release, he soon realises that all he has left is the memory of their dance steps.
• Your Voice Only (Rana Wael Matar, Saudi Arabia 2023) A Sudanese man working in an isolated horse stable in Dahban, Saudi Arabia, tries to contact his family after not being able to reach them in three months.

Prize: £1,500 + BFI Player subscriptions

• Endlessly Hungry (Prajvi Mandhani, UK 2024) Entering a digital interface, the viewer follows the cursor as it travels across screens and windows, navigating blurred boundaries between political absurdity and reality.
• Over There (Shuqi Li, UK 2024) A jobless woman sells her body to enter the digital world and seemingly thrive, but soon she discovers something unsettling about her new existence.
• The Dogs (George Moore Chadwick, UK 2024) After the collapse of human civilisation, an old dog faces up to his own mortality and the prospect of a new world.
• The Golden Post-box (Julia Mervis, UK 2024) Members of the public ruminate on the impact of Sheffield’s golden postbox on the local community, a souvenir from the fever dream that was the year 2012.
• The Journey Home (Noah Lei Underwood, UK 2023) A creature considers its current bindings and finds them wanting in this ethereal meditation on the surreal quality of queer and intersectional realities.

Prize: £1,500 + mentoring package + BFI Player subscriptions

• Almost Intangible (Taraneh Esmailian, Iran 2024) When they are asked to improvise during an audition, a husband and wife discover some uncomfortable truths about their relationship in the process.
• Everything Looks Simple from a Distance (Conor Toner, Ireland 2024) With tensions mounting in 1969 Northern Ireland, Noah looks for a higher purpose and decides that a trip to the moon may be the best route to peace.
• Heavy (Eve Grant, UK 2024) A trip to the local supermarket to buy sanitary products forces an awkward and uncomfortable conversation between a teenage girl and her clueless father.
• Hot Young Geeks Seek Blood-Sucking Freak (Heath Virgoe, UK 2024) Max finds himself the online target of an angry vampire. Enlisting his roommate Ricky for help, the pair’s attempts at home defence are quickly complicated by the arrival of a forgotten pizza delivery.
• TFH! (Fraser Scott, UK 2024) After waking up to discover they’re the last two humans left in Paisley following a mass alien abduction, friends Darren and Lu grow closer as they attempt to stay one step ahead of the threat.