Directors Notes // The Home of Independent Filmmaking

10 Genre-Spanning Short Films That Capture the Essence of SXSW London 2026

DN takes a closer look at the wide short film selection of the second edition of SXSW London, selecting 10 must-watch titles for you to hunt down.

Article, Sponsored

“Brave Provocative Stories” Holly Fraser on WePresent’s Approach to Commissioning Fearless Director-Led Short Films

WeTransfer's arts platform WePresent commissions provocative director-led shorts, backing filmmakers with the creative freedom, funding and reach to make them.

Live Action, Premiere

David Liu Builds a Lifetime of History Between Lovers in His Temporally Fluid Short ‘A Song for Gracie’

Past and present blur at a Mojave gas station as David Liu's elegiac short asks what it means to carry every version of yourself into an uncertain future.

Live Action, Premiere

A Mother and Two Daughters Circle Their Shared History in Chanelle Eidenbenz’s Subtly Searing Short ‘Resort’

Mosaic editing and a rich sonic world coalesce in Chanelle Eidenbenz's auto-fictional short where a fractured family orbits each other without quite landing.

Live Action

Profound Solitude Slowly Collapses Around a Sheltered Farmer in Billy Chester’s Stark Swedish Island Short ‘Bonde’

Billy Chester traded a composed score for ambient texture and dialogue for half-murmurs in his enthralling rendering of a secluded farmer's isolation.

Live Action

Ross O’Donnellan’s Tender Directorial Debut ‘Bedcrumbs’ Sits Inside the Quiet Erosion of a Failing Relationship

Shot on 16mm in sweaty, dreamlike hues, Ross O'Donnellan's queer chamber piece watches non-monogamy fail as a bandage stretched over a broken bone.

Film Festival, Live Action

Cannes Double-Hitter Vida Skerk Finds Solidarity in the Industrial Sublime in Haunting ‘Left Behind, Still Standing’

Vida Skerk's second consecutive La Cinef Cannes selected short binds a closing British steelworks and the immigrant overseeing it into one haunted reckoning.

Live Action, Premiere

Ghosts of Empire Bleed Through a Hustler’s Frantic South London Odyssey in Keifer Nyron Taylor’s ‘The Tobacconist’

Keifer Nyron Taylor unpacks how years of photographing Brixton laid the foundation for his 16mm depiction of a vibrant community threatened by gentrification.

Animation, Film Festival

Fanny Capu Unburdens the Next Generation From the Suffocating Weight of Legacy in Stop-Motion Cannes Short ‘Pickled’

Fanny Capu on engineering a dancing puppet for her grad NFTS Cannes premiering short that asks what each generation is owed and what heritage it can discard.