As we gear up for the start of a new academic year, we’re excited to announce that submissions for the 5th edition of the LJMU MA Short Film Festival will open very soon. From Monday 23rd September, you’ll be able to submit your work for consideration for the 2025 programme of the festival, in the category of Fiction, Documentary, Animation, or Experimental film. Submissions are open to students and alumni from ANY INSTITUTION OF HIGHER EDUCATION and/or FILM SCHOOL provided their submission was made as part of their student work and completed after JANUARY 2022. This year’s festival promises to be bigger and better as we celebrate our fifth anniversary of championing and showcasing thought provoking, groundbreaking, original student work.
To submit your films for the 2025 edition, head over to FilmFreeway and search for the LJMU MA Short Film Festival, or click the link here. To keep track of what’s going on at this year’s festival, head over to our socials listed below and give us a follow:
Now that the 4th edition of the LJMU MA Short Film Festival has come to a close, it’s time to reveal which films were awarded the coveted Paper Bird Awards at our ceremony this past week. The event was a celebration of not only the films featured in this year’s programme, but also the hard work of this year’s MA students whose tireless efforts have ensure that the festival was a success. Audiences in attendance were treated to screenings of this year’s winners and special mentions, as well as a live awards presentation hosted by Frank, Emily, and Maz, and attended by a number of this year’s featured filmmakers. The awards ceremony and all of this year’s Q&As can all be watched on our YouTube channel.
The first category announced was Documentary, with the Paper Bird Award going to Nelisa Alcalde’s film, Honey Bunny Duracell. The jury praised how immersive the film was and praised its outstanding editing and cinematography. The jury also awarded special mentions to Gabriel Alborough’s film, Sundown, and Andy Heath’s, A Voice Once Heard.
The next award announced was for best Animated film, with this year’s programme totalling 12 entries from countries including Australia, Serbia, and Taiwan. The jury selected Miriam Fox’s Dead Silent, as the winner of this year’s Paper Bird Award, describing her film as an ‘unflinching and mature look at a sensitive but important topic.’ The jury also chose to award a special mention to Infemmes, and ‘important and timely film which deals with the perpetuation of gender discrimination.’
The fiction programme was incredibly competitive this year, featuring stories that focused on moral dilemmas, social isolation, and economic inequality. The winner of this year’s Paper Bird Award for Fiction was Giovanna Castellari Peixoto’s, Two-Syllable Name, a realist drama praised for its powerful message and strong female protagonist. Awarded a special mention was Jauffrey Gallé’s, The Nice Guy…, which the jury felt engaged with a important contemporary issue through the lens of absurd humour.
The Experimental strand was introduced in 2023 and expanded this year to include 9 of the most challenging and exciting new approaches to filmmaking. The Paper Bird Award was given to Lucas Kua’s, Obscura, a film which explores the erosion of personal connections caused by an over-reliance on social media. Special mentions were awarded to Karo De Nijs’, Foul Fools, a sleep-dream election on fragmented friendships, and Iris Peil’s, Ab Absurdo, a pitch-black comedy about performance as life (and vice-versa).
The final award announced during the ceremony was the eagerly awaited Audience Paper Bird, which is voted for by visitors to the LJMU MA Short Film Festival website. Voting was close throughout the duration of the festival, with the eventual winner being Emilia Ferrari’s, Valdo, a contemplative look at one man’s quest to preserve his traditional way of life in the face of modernisation.
We’d like to offer our congratulations to all of the winners of this year’s festival. We’d also like to thank all of the filmmakers who submitted to this year’s edition of the LJMU MA Short Film Festival, as without your hard work and dedication it would not be possible to showcase the finest in emergent student filmmaking. It’s been an incredible 4th edition and we’re looking forward to returning in 2025 for our 5th birthday!
All good things must come to and end, and this year’s edition of the LJMU MA Short Film Festival is no exception. We’d love to be able to give you even more time to watch our excellent programme of Fiction, Documentary, Animation, and Experimental films, but the window for doing so closes this evening at 11:59 precisely! Fear not, as there is still time left to watch this year’s programme and to get your votes in for the film you think deserves to be awarded this year’s Audience Paper Bird – vote by clicking the ‘thumbs-up’ icon – you can vote for s many films as you like but only once for each film.
Tonight we will also be holding our highly anticipated awards ceremony and celebration at Scale Liverpool (doors open 6:30PM). Come and raise a glass to the work of this year’s student filmmakers, many of whom will be joining us live, and the LJMU MA Students who have made the 4th edition such a memorable event – tickets for the ceremony are absolutely free and can be booked HERE – act quickly to avoid disappointment!
As we reach the close of the 4th edition of the LJMU MA Short Film Festival, it’s time to reflect on the work we have featured and celebrate the creative talents of the filmmaker’s who have been so gracious as to allow us to include their films in this year’s programme. Come and join us and do just this at our close of festival Awards Ceremony, where we’ll be revealing which films have won the coveted Paper Bird Awards for Documentary, Animation, Fiction, and Experimental – we’ll also be revealing the film you have chosen to receive our Paper Bird Audience Award. Our Awards Ceremony takes place tomorrow evening (Friday 22nd @ 6:30PM) at Scale Liverpool and you can grab your free ticket HERE. There’s still time to vote for the Audience Award, so make sure you’re hitting the ‘Thumbs-up’ icon on your favourite film.
It’s almost time to wrap up this year’s edition of the LJMU MA Short Film Festival and what an edition it has been. We’ve already screened the full programmes for Documentary, Animation, and Fiction, but fear not! We still have time for one more screening – our Experimental strand! Tickets for tonights screening are still available HERE.
With only three days left of this year’s LJMU MA Short Film Festival, tomorrow evening (Thursday 21st) is you final chance to join us for one of our free, in-person screenings. As with our previous events, we’ll be joined by some of this year’s experimental filmmakers who will be discussing the meaning behind their films and what draws them to push the boundaries of cinema. You can grab your free ticket HERE and join us for an evening of stimulating, challenging, and provocative filmmaking.
Vote now for the 2024 Audience paper Bird Award
There’s only a few days left to vote for your favourite film from this year’s programme. Whether it be Documentary, Fiction, Animation, or Experimental, every vote counts and yours could be the decisive one. You can vote for you favourite film via its individual page by hitting the ‘thumbs up’ icon underneath the video player. You can vote for as many films as you like, but importantly, you can only vote for each film once – head over to your favourite film now and get voting!
With the 2024 edition of the LJMU MA Short Film Festival at the half way mark, why not join us for our in-person Fiction screening? We’ll be screening the year’s Fiction programme in full, giving audiences the chance to watch 6 of the freshest and most captivating short films from the next generation of filmmaking talent. You can register HERE for free tickets to the screening and what’s more, we’ll be following this with a live Q&A where some of the filmmakers from this year’s Fiction strand will be discussing their films and what motivates and inspires them as creatives.
While you’re busy baking your tickets, why not also secure your place at our live, in-person awards ceremony at Scale Liverpool and be one of the first to discover who wins this year’s Paper Bird Awards. You can also watch this year’s previous Q&As over on our YouTube channel.
Hot on the heels of last night’s Documentary screening and Q&A, tonight is the turn of Animation. Grab your free tickets HERE and join us for 12 shorts that push the boundaries of animation. We’ll also be joined live by some of the directors from this year’s programme who will be discussing their films, influences, and what goes into creating such captivating and exciting animated shorts. You can join us for our free in-person screening and Q&A at the Redmonds Building, Liverpool, this evening from 5:30 – catch a replay of yesterday’s documentary Q&A over on our YouTube channel.
Tonight marks the first of our live screening and Q&A events, taking place at LJMUs Redmonds Building from 5:45 (doors open 5:30). We’re excited to screening this year’s full documentary programme, featuring fresh perspectives from across the globe, taking in countries such as Argentina, Iran, and Denmark. The films featured in our documentary strand engage with a variety of topics, from living with a terminal illness, to the role of sport in connecting with refugees.
After the screening has finished, we’ll be connecting with some of our featured documentary filmmakers who will be discussing their films, creative processes, and what draws them to the medium of documentary filmmaking. Tickets for tonight’s events (along with our remaining screenings and awards ceremony) can be booked, absolutely free, HERE.
We’re proud to announce that the full programme of 36 films featured in this year’s LJM MA Short Film Festival is now live and completely free to watch over at our website. Here, you’ll be able to enjoy some of the best emergent filmmaking talent from across the world, featuring the best in short Fiction, Animation, Documentary, and Experimental student filmmaking. Click below to start watching now!
After you’ve watched this year’s programme, make sure you’re voting for your favourite film by clicking on the ‘thumbs-up’ icon. You can find one on each individual film page, just below the title of the film. This is your chance to help choose which of this year’s films receives the Paper Bird Audience Award.
Choose how to watch – live or online!
This year we’re giving you a choice of how to watch our featured films- online at our website or at one of our live in-person screenings at the Redmonds Building in Liverpool. If you choose to watch in-person, you’ll also be treated to a live Q&A with some of the filmmakers from this year’s programme. This is a great opportunity to find out more about your favourite films from this year’s programme, as well as meet the next generation of filmmaking talent. Screenings begin on Monday (18th) and continue until Thursday (21st), beginning with a screening of the entire documentary programme. Tickets are also available for our live awards ceremony on Friday 22nd at Scale Liverpool, where we’ll be revealing the winners of this year’s Paper Bird Awards. Grab your tickets from our website or book via the TicketSource link below.
In a matter of hours we’ll be launching this year’s LJMU MA Short Film Festival and showcasing some of the best emergent filmmaking talent from across the world. This year’s entries cover a wide range of countries including Singapore, Brazil, Chile. Closer to home, we’re also featuring films from Estonia, Sweden, France, and Poland. Here at the festival, we’re immensely proud to be able to act as a platform which gives student filmmakers much needed visibility while also introducing audiences to a variety of perspectives.
This year, the festival features 36 films across four strands: Fiction, Documentary, Animation, and Experimental. These films will be competing for our iconic Paper Bird Awards which this year, have been redesigned by artist and filmmaker, Ivan Mack. Keep checking our social media as we’ll be revealing the new design next week.
Vote for the Audience Award
As well as the Paper Bird Awards for the four main strands, we’ll also be awarding the Paper Bird Audience Award, which is decided by you, the viewing public. After you watched all of this year’s programme, vote for your favourite film by clicking on the ‘thumbs up’. the film that receives the most votes will be the winner of this year’s Audience Paper Bird Award and will be revealed at this year’s live awards ceremony. Tickets for this event and our other screenings are available via the following link, but act fast to avoid disappointment as spaces are limited.
With the festival fast approaching, we’re gearing up for the first of four live screenings which will take place on Monday 18th March at LJMUs Redmonds Building. We’ll be screening the documentary programme in full and what’s more, we’ll be following this with a live Q&A, where you’ll get the chance to ask questions to some of this year’s filmmakers. This is a unique opportunity to discover what inspires and motivates our featured filmmakers, as well as a chance to find out more about this year’s documentary films. Free tickets for the event are available here, but act fast as spaces are limited.
Tickets are also available for our other live screenings for Animation, Fiction, and Experimental, which also take place at the Redmonds on Tues 19th, Weds 20th, and Thurs 21st. You can also grab a free ticket for our end of festival awards ceremony and celebration which will be held at Scale Liverpool. Here, we’ll be revealing the winners of this year’s Paper Bird Awards -stay tuned to our social media over the next week where we’ll be revealing our fantastic new design created by the super talented Ivan Mack.
It's been a crazy few weeks, we've had guests galore! It's the right time to slow things down a little, talk about what's happening over the next 7 days.
Like and follow for more updates – and find us on our socials – https://shorturl.at/KPQ5j
Special thanks to Leandro and Bridget for their technical expertise!
Two of our MA students, Frank and Peter, have been hard at work recording episodes for our new podcast – The LJMU MA Festival Pod! The duo have been interviewing students, staff, and jury members, giving listeners unrivalled access to behind the scenes of the LJMU MA Short Film Festival. The first two episodes are available now on Apple Podcasts – search for LJMU MA Festival Pod or listen via the above Podcast player.
In just seven short days, the 4th edition of the LJMU MA Short Film Festival will be underway, meaning you’ll be able to watch all 36 of this year’s entries across Fiction, Animation, Documentary, & Experimental.
This week, we’ve been introducing some of the filmmakers and films featured in this year’s programme over on our social media channels. We’ll also have more content in the week leading up to the launch where we’ll also be revealing our new look Paper Bird Awards which have been crated by artist and filmmaker, Ivan Mack. Keep your eyes peeled for even more news and information in the coming week!
Live Screenings & Award Ceremony
In addition to being available to watch for free on our website for the duration of the festival, we’ll also be screening this year’s individual programme strands in front of a live audience! Every night from Monday 18th to Thursday 21st March, we’ll be holding screenings at LJMUs Redmonds Building on Brownlow Hill in Liverpool. These screenings are free to attend and we’ll also be joined by the filmmakers for a live Q&A, where you’ll be able to ask questions and find out more about their work. What’s more, on Friday 22nd March at Scale Liverpool, we’ll be holding our annual LJMU MA Short Film Festival Awards Ceremony, where we’ll be announcing the winners of this year’s Paper Bird Awards. Tickets for both events are absolutely free and can be booked here.
Meet your juries for the 2024 LJMU MA Short Film Festival
Hot on the heels of the release of this year’s festival trailers, today we are able to introduce the juries for this year’s LJMU MA Short Film Festival.
This year’s fiction jury is comprised of Kathrin Kohlstedde; Head of Programme at Filmfest Hamburg, Sarah Bell; lecturer in film, & LJMU Student, Oscar Bradshaw.
Making up this year’s Documentary jury is Giannis Misouridis; independent cinematographer & filmmaker, Salma Shalaby; documentary filmmaker & producer, and LJMU Student Emma Rock.
This year’s Animation jury features award winning producer, Deborah Sheppard, last year’s Animation Paper Bird Winners, Marta Sniezek & Christian Spurling, and LJMU Student Josh Darlington.
Rounding out this year’s juries is Experimental, featuring Ger Zielinski; lecturer on critical media studies in the School of Professional Communication at Toronto Metropolitan University, 2024 Experimental Paper Bird Award winner, Karolina Monwid–Olechnowicz, and LJMU Student, Jacob Harris.
Further information about this year’s jury members can be found here.
2024 Live Events!
Don’t forget, there’s still time to join us for one of this year’s live screenings and awards ceremony. You can secure you tickets absolutely FREE here. We’ll be screening each programme strand in full and following this with a live Q&A with some of this year’s featured directors.
This is something you won’t want to miss – tickets for these events are limited so act now to avoid disappointment!
After the release of our Experimental trailer yesterday, today marks the unveiling of our final overall festival trailer. This year’s edition of the LJMU MA Short Film Festival features 36 of the best in emergent student filmmaking, with entries from 22 countries including Singapore, Venezuela, and Estonia. You can see the full programme for this year’s edition of the LJMU MA Short Film Festival here. This year’s overall trailers were created by our super talented MA students Chloé and Annabelle and I am sure you will agree that they’ve both done an outstanding job.
2024 Festival Live Screenings
This year’s films will be available to watch for free at our website from 15th – 22nd March. What’s more, after the success of last year’s live event, this year we’ll be holding even more live screenings. From Monday 18th – Thursday 21st March, we’ll be screening each strand in its entirety at LJMUs Redmonds Building. After the screenings have finished, stick around for a live Q&A with some of the filmmaker’s featured in this year’s programme. Here, you’ll be able to ask the filmmakers about their films, what inspires them, and their hopes for the future. Doors open 5:30 PM (GMT) for a 5:45 PM start and you can sign up for a free ticket here.
As we draw ever close to the launch of this year’s LJMU MA Short Film Festival, today marks the release of our Fiction trailer, featuring 6 stunning films hand-picked from almost 1400 entries. This year’s selection of films features explores the consequences of childhood curiosity, poverty and loneliness in the elderly, and individuals being pushed to the limits of their endurance. Competition for the coveted Paper Birds Award for Fiction is sure to be intense!
You can check out the Fiction trailer across all our social media channels as well as on our YouTube channel. This year’s Fiction trailers have been lovingly crafter by our MA students Frank & Tegan and we’re sure you’ll agree that they look fantastic. There isn’t much time left until this year’s festival gets underway, so make sure you’re staying up to date with all of the news and developments at the festival. Very soon, we’ll also be sharing details of how you can vote for your favourite entry into this year’s festival, the winner of which will receive the Paper Bird Audience Award.
If you’ve been keeping up to date with our social media, you may have also seen this year’s trailers for our Animation & Documentary strands – if not, you can check them out below!
Hot on the heels of our first trailer release for this year’s documentary strand, today we bring to you the reveal of our 2024 Animation trailer. This year’s Animation trailer sees entrants from countries including Serbia, Taiwan, and Australia all hoping to take home the covered Paper Bird Award for Animation. From a field of more than 600 entries, our student programmers have picked 12 films that they believe represent the best in student animation. This year’s Animation trailers are the work of Jess Gordon & Nick Box, two more of our super-talented MA students – keep an eye out on our social media channels this afternoon for the big reveal!
Don’t forget, you can also listen back to yesterday’s BBC Radio Merseyside show, where two of our MA Students, Maz and Frank were interviewed by presenter Helen Jones – the interview starts at 48 minutes.
As excitement around this year’s LJMU MA Short Film Festival builds, we’re delighted to announce that two of our students, Mhairi & Frank, will be live, this afternoon on BBC Radio Merseyside. They’ll be chatting with presenter Helen Jones about this year’s screenings, films, and discussing their roles behind the scenes at the festival – you can listen live here from 2:30 PM today.
2024 Documentary Trailer Reveal
In other exciting news, today sees the launch of the first of our festival trailers. This year’s first release is the trailer for documentary, created by talented MA students Chloé & Andrew. The trailers give audiences a sneak peek at this year’s documentary strand films, which explore a variety of subjects including gender inequality, sustainability & preservation, and living with progressive disease. Head over to our YouTube channel or Social Media platforms to watch the trailers now.
As with previous years, we like to make a big deal of the official poster reveal – this year is no exception, so it is my great pleasure to reveal to you the official poster for the 2024 LJMU MA Short Film Festival! This year, we’ve been. lucky enough to retain the creative skills of MA graduate and artist Alejandra Cardona-Mayorga. Ale worked alongside our current MA students to develop their ideas into a finalised festival poster, and this continues the excellent work she has done for the previous two editions.
This year’s MA students were given the task of coming up with poster ideas, the only stipulation being that it had to retain the colour scheme and core elements of the festival identity. For this year’s poster, we went for a mixed-media approach, initially creating the poster using paper before photographing the finished result and completing the final version in Adobe Illustrator. The finished poster retains the themes associated with the Paper Bird while also accentuating ideas of creativity through the practice of origami.
Keep an eye out for our new poster and banner on our social media channels – we’ll be updating you soon with more news on this year’s festival line-up, as we’re currently in the final stages of whittling down the nearly 3000 submissions we’ve received for the 2024 edition. We’re looking forward to showcasing the best in emergent, student filmmaking.
The last two months have seen a phenomenal reaction to our call for entries for the 2024 LJMU MA Short Film Festival, but unfortunately, the submission period must come to an end. We’ve received a staggering amount of films from across the globe, with students from over 100 countries eager to showcase their work during our festival.
Our current MA students are already busily working their way through this year’s submissions, and over the coming months, they’ll be compiling the final programme for the 2024 edition of the festival. We’ve got plenty to announce going forward, including the reveal of the highly anticipated festival poster. Make sure you’re subscribed to our social media channels over on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter/X, Threads, YouTube, & LinkedIn for all the latest news.
Three weeks ago, we opened submissions for the 2024 edition of the LJMU MA Short Film Festival. We’re happy to report that the response so far has been incredible! Over the past 21 days, we’ve had entries from students representing countries such as Ghana, Venezuela, Singapore, Mexico, and Poland – but we’re not done yet! For this year’s edition of the festival, we want to see even more of your work. Our submission window is open for the next 5 weeks, so if you’ve yet to submit, what are you waiting for? There’s still time to submit your entries for the 2024 LJMU MA Short Film Festival – head over to FilmFreeway by clicking the link below and submit your films now!
As always, we’ll be featuring the work of some of the brightest and most talented emergent student filmmakers from across the globe. You can check out previous editions of the LJMU MA Short Film Festival at our archive section. We can’t wait to see what you’ve been working on for this year’s edition!
The 2024 LJMU MA Short Film Festival – bringing you the best in emergent student short Fiction, Animation, Documentary, and Experimental filmmaking.
