Last weekend, Directors Notes had the pleasure of attending the 18th BFI Future Film Festival. There was a truly supportive energy within the iconic walls of the BFI Southbank, with every attendee eager to share insights about each other’s work. The festival has also seen several DN alums join its award winners lists over the years, such as Nathan Ginter (Best Film 17th edition), Will Wightman (Best Director 15th edition), Ella Bee Glendining (Best Experimental Short 9th edition) and Duncan Cowles (Best 19-25 UK Short Film 9th edition). It’s easy to see how the festival’s sense of creative camaraderie nurtures talent by encouraging and celebrating them at this vital nascent point of their careers. Between networking events, industry panels, and interviewing filmmakers for our podcast episode, I explored this year’s 54 selected short films – which are all available to watch on the BFI’s YouTube channel until the 6th March – each showcasing a range of genres and styles yet consistently demonstrating artistic originality and outstanding quality. However, for those of you looking for guidance as to the shorts you really shouldn’t miss, without further ado here are Directors Notes top BFI Future Film Festival 2025 picks.
We’re Not In Essex Anymore – Grac Talbot
Part mixed media animation, part green screen experiment, Grac Talbot’s We’re Not In Essex Anymore tells the tale of four women travelling to London for a night out. Through playful parallels to The Wizard of Oz, we understand that for these women clubbing is a magical expression of freedom, a fantastical escape from suburban Essex to the big city – a journey over the rainbow if you will. Grac’s exuberant and refreshing mixed media approach to filmmaking captures the vibrant spirit of the BFI Future Film Festival, visually evoking scrapbooks with astounding detail. Simply put, this is lo-fi filmmaking at its most ambitious and inspiring.
A Few More Minutes, Please – Dylan Scott
A Few More Minutes, Please from Dylan Scott caught me completely off-guard. What begins as a zany, comic portrayal of social anxiety quickly deepens into something surprisingly emotional, aided by Noah Manzoor’s standout performance. With impressive ambition, including special effects and puppetry, the film effortlessly rides the fine line between stylish and sincere, blending the two with remarkable finesse. A striking accomplishment that will leave you with tears of both joy and catharsis in your eyes.
A Natural Saddest – Sobae Kim
Absolutely bubbling with experimental originality, Sobae Kim’s South Korean film A Natural Saddest will enchant those who prefer their films on the stranger side. The short tells the peculiar tale of human connection through a couple who build a business from naturally producing pearls with their bodies. Shot with fluorescent haze reminiscent of a Wong Kar-Wai film the aesthetic has a refreshing sense of fluidity, seamlessly shifting form from squeamish body horror to intimate drama and even including a spot of animation. The Natural Saddest will leave you puzzled and moved, an experience that is as inspiring as it is unpredictable.
Hot Young Geek Seeks Blood-Sucking Freak – Heath Virgoe
Not only playing at BFI Future Film Festival, but also BFI Flare 2025 in March, Heath Virgoe’s Hot Young Geek Seeks Blood-Sucking Freak utterly charmed me. There’s a wonderful playful sensibility, clearly this is a crew of stylish young filmmakers finding joy in a delightfully sharp script. But through the postmodern nods to Nosferatu and Twilight and nostalgic references to Tumblr and fanfiction, the short shines with its gentle pathos – a genuinely heartfelt and tender story of queer discovery and friendship.
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Everything Looks Simple From A Distance – Conor Toner
At first glance, Conor Toner’s Iris Prize-nominated short Everything Looks Simple From A Distance may appear to be a simple film with the charismatic yet tragically ambitious Noah pitching a barmy idea: Northern Ireland must reach the moon before America and Russia. However, as the title aptly suggests there’s much more beneath its charmingly comic surface. As the narrative unfolds we’re left with a haunting reminder of a troubled Northern Ireland’s desperate yearning for hope, all brought to life by Cailum Carragher’s deceptively poignant performance and an ending that left a packed NFT1 audience in chilling contemplation.
Blueprint – Lada Kopytova
In Blueprint Lada Kopytova tells an intimate tale of a young screenwriter who uses her work to reckon with the memories of her ex-boyfriend in the wake of their breakup. With inventive visual flair and gorgeous use of lighting, Blueprint delves deep into the complex morality of storytelling, warning against the dangers of reducing real-life experiences to simplistic narratives and urges viewers to reflect on essential questions: Who owns our stories? What details might be omitted? And perhaps most importantly, whose truth is being told and for what purpose?
Their Accounts – Hannah Hunter
BFI Future Film Fest showcased a number of documentaries but Hannah Hunter’s Their Accounts stood out to me due to its handcrafted and unconventional documentary style. Drawing inspiration from the folk tradition of oral storytelling, the film features a series of disembodied interviews exploring the heritage, future, freedom and hardships of the Scottish peninsula of Ardnamurchan alongside the community that resides on it. Like all great documentaries, it’s incredibly specific featuring a unique blend of split-screen, archive footage and Mark Faulkner’s charming animation. Their Accounts paints a loving and spiritual landscape of a place rarely seen on screen, which completely transported me to the untouched greenery of Ardnamurchan.
Over There – Shuqi Li
Told entirely through the cartoonish lens of an animated PC desktop Over There from Shuqi Li delicately treads the expansive thematic ground of digital existence despite its simplistic form. The total absence of human presence conjures an uncanny, isolated tone, encapsulating the melancholic loneliness of interacting with a screen – a feeling many from younger generations will recognise. In the age of rising AI usage a film pondering what we give to the internet, the power it holds and the psychological cost of the digital world feels incredibly timely. Over There is ultimately a powerful testament to how, in the world of short films, a little can go a long way.
Heavy – Eve Grant
It’s almost unbelievable that Heavy is Eve Grant’s directorial debut. Her witty and kind short follows a single father trying to support his daughter through her first period, played by Steve Walker with equal amounts of empathy and hilarity, while Holly Osbourne’s performance carries all the emotional weight of the pubescent years. Despite being led by their chemistry, there’s an incredibly natural sense of rhythm and style to the direction, aided by an incredibly intelligent script. It’s a terrific debut, with both heart and charm in bucketloads.
Rebirth – Joel Claudio
Joel Claudio’s Best Experimental Short winner Rebirth is a poignant and personal meditation on hope and pain in the wake of the 2012 London Riots. There’s a hypnotic quality to the film’s fluctuating speed as a group of slow-motion protesters dressed in white race through the streets to a transportative score. The mise-en-scène is meticulously crafted, with the presence of white flowers serving as a powerful metaphor for a community emerging from trauma, blossoming through pain. The film’s hopeful and optimistic sense of resilience left a lasting impression on me and I found myself mentally revisiting those visuals all weekend.
Red Lace – Andrea Adame & Paula Trejo Espada
Our final pick is Andrea Adame and Paula Trejo Espada’s Best Film winning Red Lace, a strikingly original horror short about an unsettling society of cake lovers. Visually, the film is tactile, immersive and vibrant, utilising uncomfortable close-ups and a bold use of red that recalls the work of Powell and Pressburger. There’s something incredibly frightening about the contrast between the sickening violence of masculinity and the delicate pastel pink decor of cake icing, but perhaps the most disturbing element is the film’s stomach-churning sound design, amplifying the squelching sounds of cake making, and worse, eating. Red Lace is a terrifying, deeply disturbing short that really got under my skin.
You can find more unmissable films, like the ones featured at the BFI Future Film Festival, in our Best of Fest collections.
