Directors Notes
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Directors NotesUKSami Abusamra’s Soviet-Era Short ‘Tank’ Fires a Dry Comic Warning Shot About Weak Men Masquerading as Strong Ones It’s no easy thing feeling like a passenger in your own life. When one day blurs into the next, people see through you, and it feels like nothing will ever change – that this is simply your lot in…
Directors NotesUKWe’re All Clowns Dancing Through Capitalism in Zen Pace’s Gig Economy Horror Comedy ‘Are You Fucking Kidding Me?!’ What happens when a clown becomes terrifying? We’ve seen this trope explored in cinema before, but rarely with the same sharp social commentary on display in Are You Fucking Kidding Me ?!…
Directors NotesUK“No script. No money. No locations” – How Industry Frustrations Shaped Jared Hogan’s Latest Short ‘Dogbite’ One of the things that has consistently motivated my involvement with Directors Notes is the DIY ethos that underpins almost everything we do.
Directors NotesUK11 Gems From Conero Film + ADV 2026 to Look Out For Our friends at Conero Film +ADV have invited Directors Notes once again to serve as Media Partner for the festival and creative retreat, this year entitled Pianeta Fresco , taking place at the…
Directors NotesUKÉmile Lavoie Delivers an Unabashedly Grizzly, Expectation Defying Horror Comedy With ‘Mean Ends’ There’s an old saying that goes something along the lines of, “If it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck.” Émile Lavoie combines that notion with a…
Directors NotesUKLife Reflects Art in Émile V. Schlesser’s ‘Backstage’ Blending On-Stage Power Play With Real-Life Abuse In the theatre, every performance is an illusion. But what happens when the most dangerous drama unfolds beyond the audience’s view? In Backstage , director Émile V.
Directors NotesUK10 Short Films Capturing the Essence of Riga International Film Festival 2026 Every October, the Riga International Film Festival welcomes audiences into a diverse programme of films that span a wide range of styles and perspectives while placing a particular focus on the…
Directors NotesUKFrom “Back Alley Head Job” to SXSW Award-Winner: Lee Lawson on the Evolution of ‘Man Eating Pussy’ Winner of the Midnight Short Special Jury Award at SXSW and recently screened as part of the BFI London Film Festival , Lee Lawson’s unforgettable short film Man Eating Pussy has made quite an…
Directors NotesUKMax Clendaniel Wields a Cheesy Horror Prop as an Ego-Shattering Weapon in Improvised Comedy ‘Dummy’ It’s a well-known fact that actors’ egos can be very fragile. This is hardly surprising, considering how exposing their work can be: performing in front of fellow cast members and crew, pouring their…
Directors NotesUKWho Gets Believed? Susan Wokoma Confronts the Adultification of Black Children in ‘Dark Skin Bruises Differently’ Who’d be a teacher? It’s a famously underpaid, undervalued and overworked profession, wherever you are in the world.
Directors NotesUKRobert Piel’s ‘The Lap’ Harvests the Unspoken Fears and Desires Behind a Teenage Struggle for Power Certain feelings, those disruptive, explosive and inexplicable ones we feel in our early teens, are not always easy to capture on camera – nonetheless, their universality means they can fit any…
Directors NotesUKExclusive First Look at the BIFA 2026 Best British Short Film Longlist Announcing the BIFA 2026 Longlist for Best British Short Film Directors Notes’ heart and soul has always been short film, so partnering with the British Independent Film Awards to announce the 15…
Directors NotesUKSam Baron Unearths an Elegiac Reckoning Within a Decade of Doomsday Predictions in ‘Everything Will Be Totally Fine’ My mum died unexpectedly in August, and I’m learning that grief isn’t a single wave so much as an all-engulfing and unpredictable tide that keeps devastating the shoreline.
Directors NotesUKCraig Bingham Demonstrates How “Restraint Breeds Creativity” with His Mythic Fantasy Sci-Fi Short ‘FARANOOKA’ When we think about low-budget independent filmmaking, our first instinct might be to imagine grounded, realistic narratives set within recognisable worlds.
Directors NotesUK10 Exciting Shorts to Keep an Eye on from the 70th BFI London Film Festival The 70th edition of the BFI London Film Festival brings, as it does every year, a rich selection that showcases the best of contemporary filmmaking through twelve shorts programmes , spanning comedy…
Directors NotesUKSam Tricomo Asks Audiences to Find Empathy Without Forgiveness in His Darkly Transgressive Pilot ‘Puke Bitch’ How do you make an audience empathise with people who do bad shit? That’s the uncomfortable question at the heart of Puke Bitch , a darkly comic pilot that refuses to neatly explain the behaviour of…
Directors NotesUKFive Shoots, One Year and Zero Fundraising Shape Bertil Nilsson’s Intimate Identity-Shifting Feature Debut ‘Masc’ With Directors Notes celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2026, we’ve had the privilege of watching countless filmmakers make the leap from short film to features.
Directors NotesUKSubverting Stereotypes and Capturing the Authentic Drunken Perspective in Daniel Chisholm’s Dizzying ‘Don’t Puke’ Buzzed, merry, legless, smashed – there are countless ways to describe being drunk, but capturing any one of those states convincingly on screen is no easy task.
Directors NotesUKA Houseguest Too Many Tips Everything Into Chaos in Kiyan Ahmadi’s Tense & Tender Short ‘PIERRE THE GREAT’ In LA-based filmmaker Kiyan Ahmadi’s second short film, Pierre the Great , we follow Omar as he takes in his injured uncle Pierre in an attempt to help quickly disrupt the dynamic between him and his…
Directors NotesUKAnimator Kate Renshaw-Lewis Peels Back the Repetition, Rhythm and Absurdity of Mass Production in ‘Busy Bodies’ When you think about films exploring consumerism and mass production, you might expect observational documentaries or investigative journalism pieces filled with familiar images of huge factories and…
Directors NotesUKCreating Space to Breathe in the Film Industry: Inside the No Man’s Land Creative Retreat What happens when filmmakers are given five days to step away from the pressures of the industry to simply pause and reconnect?
Directors NotesUKFrom Cosmic Head Explosions to Awkward Third Wheels: 11 Short Films to Discover at Encounters Film Festival 2026 While much of the film industry’s attention will soon turn towards the BFI London Film Festival , for those of us more deeply embedded in the short film world, it’s festivals like Encounters that…
Directors NotesUKLola-Rose Maxwell Turns a Vintage Coat Into a Voyeuristic Menace in Her Debut Horror Comedy ‘Attack of the Coat’ As children, many of us harboured the fear that the objects in our homes were actually alive and that during the night they would suddenly wake up and attack us, fulfilling our worst nightmares.
Directors NotesUKWhen Friendship Becomes a Nightmare: Hugo De Sousa on His SXSW Short ‘Best Friends with the Devil’ Relationships have long been fertile ground for storytellers, but while romantic entanglements dominate so many narratives, stories centred on friendship are comparatively rare.
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