Directors Notes is thrilled to return with another short film selection from the BIFA & BAFTA qualifying Bolton International Film Festival, chosen in anticipation of team DN’s annual pilgrimage up north in October to this formidable force in the festival landscape, whose curation, dedication and craft continue to grow and delight. For filmmakers and industry pros, festivals are the vibrant lifeblood of the industry—the ultimate stage on which to watch visionary work, spark crucial collaborations and launch careers, and Bolton has carved out a reputation as a must-attend hub for all of these. Bringing an admirable array of short films, innovative industry talks and the all essential networking opportunities to its attendees from the 1st – 5th of October (with the online programme available 8th – 19th Oct), it never fails to impress. As we are always happy to see, their programme boasts an admirable selection of DN alums, including 2025 WeAreDN award winner GUN | Meme, Myself and AI | The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing | Spare Part | Easy Sell | the inaugural Slick Films Grand Prize winning Rocket Fuel, and plenty of films we’ve previously highlighted in our Best of Fest collections. With those “we didn’t overlook you” declarations out of the way, here are the 10 short films that you should most definitely be rushing to see at the festival next month.
Thoughts & Prayers – Tim Nathan
Tim Nathan’s absurd dark comedy Thoughts & Prayers is a painfully relatable descent into modern anxiety. The film weaponises the chilling absurdity of a bureaucratic letter (one of those we all hate), transforming it into a universal symbol of powerlessness. Nathan masterfully channels the overwhelming pressure of the cost-of-living crisis and the overwhelming rise of the influencer culture into a singular Kafkaesque nightmare.
Apocalypse – Benoit Méry
Benoit Méry’s charting the thrill of Hellfest in Apocalypse is a pure, unadulterated shot of metal adrenaline. Stripped of narration and talking heads, this visceral documentary throws you directly into the glorious chaos of the heart of a music festival. It’s a symphony of thrashing bodies, distorted chords, and shared euphoria, culminating in the almost spiritual release of the mosh pit. Méry doesn’t just document the event and the passion of those attending, he replicates the feeling—the sublime, beautiful anarchy that your younger self still craves. A breathtaking immersion into pure joy.
Four Seconds Flat – Leyla Josephine Coll-O’Reilly
Leyla Josephine Coll-O’Reilly truly took my breath away in her tense and masterfully intimate exploration of a relationship’s fragile edge. By reconstructing a single, unsettling moment lost to memory, Four Seconds Flat holds its breath for a perfect, agonising duration. It lives in the terrifying gap between a joke and a threat, compelling its characters—and its audience—to decide which way the scales will tip. A profound and brilliantly acted short that captures how the smallest interactions can echo with immense, unspoken weight.
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Aux armes, Christopher – Elise Amblard
Elise Amblard brings to life a quietly devastating and urgently relevant portrait of modern alienation. Aux armes, Christopher observes its young protagonist with an unsettling intimacy, mapping the vulnerable fissures in his identity that are exploited by online radicalisation. As a solar eclipse—a perfect metaphor for his obscured worldview—approaches, the arrival of new neighbours crafts a tense and tragic study of the forces that shape lost young men, building to an inevitable and heartbreaking conclusion.
KAM – Arnold Pollock
KAM from Arnold Pollock is a brilliantly concise and profound sci-fi gem which masterfully inverts the fish-out-of-water trope. When a digital protagonist falls into our world, the real alienation begins. Pollock finds a quiet, haunting beauty in the mundane streets of Manchester and explores a universal quest for purpose. A thought-provoking and visually arresting journey that lingers long after the fabric of reality settles.
Thanks to Meet You! – Richard Hunter
Richard Hunter wholeheartedly embraces short filmmaking in his breakneck descent into the glorious absurdity of corporate delirium. Thanks to Meet You! features pitch-perfect, lived-in performances, where a business meeting descends into surreal comedy. Discussions of colourful asbestos and naked wrestling aren’t distractions—they’re the entire point. Hunter pushes you face-first into this corporate wormhole, a masterclass of escalating insanity that suffocates you with its nonsensical logic until, having said everything and nothing at all, it simply stops. A breathlessly hilarious trip.
Resort – Chanelle Eidenbenz
The NFTS never fails to impress, and there is a vast archive of their work on the pages of Directors Notes. Resort, a graduate short from Chanelle Eidenbenz—whose poignant exploration of a mother’s unconventional addiction Elephant in the Room premiered on DN last year—is further proof of the school’s high calibre. A languid, sun-drenched portrait of a fractured family attempting to reconnect after a mother’s psychotic episode. On holiday, the three women navigate their dysfunction in isolation. With no grand resolutions, the film’s power lies in its quiet, unsettling observation of their strained dynamics, ultimately leaving them—and the viewer—sitting together in a shared, uncertain stillness.
Washhh – Mickey Lai
Mickey Lai’s Washhh is a nuanced and complex exploration of cultural taboos, centring on menstruation and racial tension. In a Malaysian camp, a diverse group of female trainees, accused of causing a supernatural disturbance with their dirty things, are forced into a gruesome midnight cleanup of used sanitary pads. The film powerfully critiques how ingrained stigmas and ethnocentricity fracture their strained harmony, revealing how systems meant to unite instead tear apart, leaving a traumatic legacy of silence and shame.
Spoken Movement Family Honour – Daniel Gurton
Spoken Movement Family Honour by Daniel Gurton is an unflinching, intimate portrait of a British-Ghanaian family trapped by tradition and domestic abuse. A volatile dinner table confrontation between a young girl and her oppressive father exposes the deep scars of shared history. It challenges the cultural norms that enforce silence, using expressive and hypnotic dance and raw authenticity drawn from lived experience to highlight both the psychological toll of abuse and the resilient power of survivors, advocating for breaking the cycle through truth and art.
Hope Holds Up Her Head and Hopes – Andrew Kötting
During a recent film festival, I caught Andrew Kötting’s latest film Hope Holds Up Her Head and Hopes and a talk by the lauded artist and filmmaker about his body of work, his daughter Eden as his closest collaborator and muse, and was enthralled by the sheer experimental absurdity yet clarity of his work. Hope Holds Up Her Head and Hopes features the most exquisite costume design, fantastical references and audio-visual immersion, which allows your mind to roam and reflect whilst taking in the absurd.
You can find more DN film festival favourites in our Best of Fest collections.
