With the dust settled on this year’s edition of the LJMU MA Short Film Festival, we thought it would be good to give you a round-up of some statistics and figures related to the festival – but first, the final Paper Bird Award of 2023 goes to Out of Order, which was an incredibly popular choice.
Paper Bird Audience Award Winner – Out of Order
(Directed by Charlie Ledwidge, Harley Hunt, Sam Stevens, Mariana Sandoval Valencia)
What the audience had to say:
“Such a funny and quirky short animation. So many possibilities for further lift stops.”
“Love the character design and motion feels fluid.”
“Love the mix of humor with uncertainty and anguish.”
This year, the Festival received over 1400 submissions from almost 100 countries, and we are incredibly proud to see representation from across the world. While the most popular countries for submissions were undoubtedly the U.K. and U.S.A, India, Turkey, and Brazil were also well represented, with a combined total of over 200 films. We also received submissions from Honduras, Morocco, and Tanzania, and this is testament to our aim of being a truly global film festival.
The official selections for this year’s festival also covered 19 different countries, featuring the work of filmmakers from Senegal, Ecuador, and New Zealand, amongst many others. Viewing figures were also excellent, with over 10k views across almost 50 countries.
If you missed any of our live Q&A sessions or the Awards Ceremony, don’t panic, as they are all available to view on our YouTube channel. On behalf of the whole LJMU MA Short Film Festival Team, Lydia, Martin, and the MA Students, we’d like to thank all of this year’s filmmakers for helping us make the 3rd edition a truly remarkable and memorable event – here’s hoping the 4th edition will be even bigger and better!