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This year’s London Short Film Festival gets underway tonight, running until January 24. If you’re looking for a change from Netflix or a glimpse at some up-and-coming filmmaking talent in handy, bite-sized form, it has a slate chockers with new shorts to discover.
Bringing star power to the line-up are hometown heroes Riz Ahmed, who stars in ‘The Long Goodbye’, a 12-minute short that also features the actor-rapper’s own music, and Daniel Kaluuya. The ‘Black Panther’ stars alongside ‘Top Boy’s Seraphina Beh in ‘Two Single Beds’, an exploration of intimacy and connection about two Black comedians holed up together in an out-of-town motel.
There are more than 200 shorts running across the nine days of the LSFF. Other highlights for Londoners to look out for include the London Lives thread of shorts tackling all the joys and hardships of life in the capital: from gentrification to diversity to being on-trend in Hackney.
And if lockdown has inspired you to pick up your smartphone and try making a film yourself, there should be plenty of #inspo on offer. London mentoring charity Intermission Youth, for one, is showcasing ‘Shakespeare on Smartphone’, a thread of five-minute films inspired by the Bard that were shot entirely on smartphones.
The festival, which historically takes in multiple London cinemas, has gone fully virtual – and global. Not every film is accessible from outside the UK, but plenty are. Have a browse of the full programme here to see what’s what and who’s who.
Individual screenings come in at £4-5, with festival passes available too (you can watch all competition films for £25). The films will be hosted on the fest’s Eventine platform.
The London Short Film Festival runs Jan 15-24. Head to the official site for all the information and full line-up.
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