Halima, a Sudanese woman living in Egypt, works as a henna painter. On a regular working day, she goes to one of Giza’s local areas to prepare a bride for her wedding. Her seven-year-old daughter Ward accompanies her and starts to wander around and discover the place. A well-structured narrative short and an impressive debut from Egyptian director Mostafa Morad, whose camera work and (…) Continue Reading »

Four-O-Five, the film, is about an un-named man in an un-named town, who has lost everything, including the love of an un-named girl because of an un-named sin committed by him at some point. Here’s our video interview with the director and actor Dhaananjay Talwade. There is a beautifully poetic quality to your film, and also a sense of loss and regret. What do you hope the audience will (…) Continue Reading »

Ziad, a Palestinian day labourer, is denied entry into Israel for work that day. Not wanting to return home empty handed after promising his daughter meat for dinner, he needs to get creative. Trump’s latest meddling in the region has effectively left many if not most Palestinians feeling hopeless. The title of this short is a nod to the Oslo Accords that ended up dispossessing them of more (…) Continue Reading »

Karachi, Pakistan. Iqbal, a migrant sex worker, cannot come to terms with his illness. He convinces his uncle to take a day trip to the beach, desperate for respite. The Arabian sea beckons. An original film about an oft-ignored demographic. Hamza handles the subject matter with sensitivity and respect, painting a complex, human portrait of a character that is too often faceless. Can you (…) Continue Reading »

In the heights of the Atlas mountains, Abdellah, a young shepherd, and his father are snowed in. As their animals start to starve, Abdellah goes in search of supplies in a village more than a day’s walk away. With his mule, he arrives in the village and discovers that it has been deserted because of a curious event that has left all the believers baffled. The product of a truly incredible (…) Continue Reading »

Thrive (Jamie Di Spirito, 2019) A sublimely intelligent and sensitive film, which sees a hook-up move into a challenging conversation. A naked man wakes up, lights up a cigarette and smokes out the window – through which the daylight outside illuminates the whole room. This is the only light source in the film, and it’s used brilliantly. Grindr buzzes. His date comes over, and they’re (…) Continue Reading »

INTERVIEW VIDEO TO COME A silly (in all the best ways) short very much made for fun that certainly made me laugh! Glad it made it into the Clermont competition. How much do you enjoy artistic experiments? Cinema audiences these days are incredibly smart and cinema literate so it’s really fun to be mischievous and play with people’s expectations. This is the beauty of short film, it (…) Continue Reading »

Forced onto the Northern Irish countryside, Hydebank Wood Facility currently houses 104 young male offenders. Four years into his sentence, Ryan is still coming to terms with the cause of his imprisonment. The unlikely catharsis to his inner (…) Continue Reading »

The film "Zombie" is a journey between hope and dystopia in a hallucinated Kinhsasa, from the culture of the hair salon to futuristic solitary clubbing, from the urban parade to the glory of a dictator in campaign (Papa Bollo) to modern western (…) Continue Reading »

Two lost souls are required to undertake community service in a small town in Normandy. As it happens, the clean and tidy beach resort doens’t actually need any of the work they’ve been assigned and they start making up a series of absurd tasks (…) Continue Reading »