Author

About the Author /

Sarah is a true multi-hyphenate within the film industry. Alongside her role as Associate Editor & Head of Outreach for Directors Notes, her extensive festival experience ranges from MC and juror duties to previously serving as Deputy Director of Brighton Rocks, where she helped steer its growth into a BIFA-qualifying event. Sarah also produces for Brighton film collective The Imaginary Project and contributes as a freelance writer for publications including 1.4 and Shots Magazine.

Live Action, Premiere

Sophie King Flips the Script on the Morning After Pill in Contraception Comedy ‘Does Your Condom Make You Fat?’

DN talks to Sophie King about blending humour and social commentary in her subversive gender disparity comedy short about a world where men can get pregnant.

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Live Action

David Robinson-Smith’s ‘We Used To Own Houses’ Vividly Conveys the Despair of Those Caught in the Housing Crisis

David Robinson-Smith shares how he moved between the dual realities of his acerbic housing crisis short where a landlord is confronted by his evicted tenant.

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Live Action, Premiere

Pulkit Arora’s ‘Anu’ Explores Grief and Displacement Through the Confined Lens of a Solitary Hotel Room

Pulkit Arora tells us how a mounted jib arm enabled the evocative cinematography in his close quarters short about a lonely widow isolated in her mourning.

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Live Action, Premiere

Amelia Sears’ ‘Three’ Dives Into the Psyche of a New Mother Fervently Grappling With Her Identity

Amelia Sears explains how she captured the difficulty of redefining your sense of self in the destabilising wake of becoming a mother for the first time.

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Live Action, Premiere

A Cursed Man’s Mounting Misfortune Plays Out for All to See in Maxwell Hughes Klaiber & Jordan Moran’s ‘JOB’

Maxwell Hughes Klaiber discusses the highly effective voyeuristic perspective he & Jordan Moran took in their short capturing the worst day of a man’s life.

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Live Action

Max Novick’s Relationship Dramedy ‘Poly’ Navigates the Delicate Dance of Power in a Pregnant Throuple

From careful zooms to POV shots, Max Novick discusses enveloping the audience in his dramedy about pregnancy sparked jealousy within a Brooklyn throuple.

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Live Action

Hazel Mckibbin Scrutinises Intricate Gendered Power Dynamics In Her Subtextual Drama ‘She Always Wins’

Hazel McKibbin talks about building an intricate dance of dominance, deference and self-diminishment between lovers and family in her charged drama short.

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Live Action, Premiere

An Enigmatic Dominatrix Upends a Couple’s Stagnant Relationship in Carlen May-Mann’s ‘Romance Package For Two’

Carlen May-Mann reveals the techniques she used to train a voyeuristic gaze on her alluring motel guest who quickly disrupts a couple's monotonous life.

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Live Action

A Middle Aged Man Frenziedly Clings Onto Illusory Notions of Youth in Jens Schillmöller’s ‘Pura Vida Ibiza’

Jens Schillmöller discusses subverting audience expectations and maintaining intrigue in his short about a man attempting to bridge the generational divide.

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Live Action, Premiere

A Woman Gets More Than She Bargained for When She Orders a Sophisticated Sex Toy in Hunter Allen’s ‘Roger’

Hunter Allen explains the key role lighting and suggestive motifs played in bringing together the advertising and naturalistic worlds of his sex toy comedy.

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Live Action, Premiere

Christa Haley Captures an Intense Moment of Female Vulnerability in Her NYU Tisch Short ‘Swim Captain’

Christa Haley details the intricacies of shooting the intimate scene in her film revealing the hidden vulnerability a swim leader looked up to by her peers.

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Live Action, Premiere

Audrey Mascina’s ‘Ludo’ Pointedly Subverts Our Expectations of Two Women Stumbling Down a Deserted Road at Night

Audrey Mascina talks about the importance of audiences seeing representations of powerful women on screen like those in her late night deserted road set drama.

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