Awards Category

Awards, Film Festival

WeAreDN Awards 2026 – The Winners

Yesterday we marked 20 years of DN at the WeAreDN Awards 2026. For those not in the room, watch the winning films and read our interviews with the awardees.

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Awards, Film Festival

Directors Notes Presents the WeAreDN Awards 2026 & Twenty Years of Supporting Indie Filmmakers

Three years of the WeAreDN Awards. Twenty years of Directors Notes. Presenting our biggest celebration yet!

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Awards, Live Action

An Unlikely Friendship Blossoms in Lee Knight’s Touching Oscar-Nominated Short Film ‘A Friend of Dorothy’

Clearing the set to calm a nervous icon, Lee Knight reflects on creating a deeply safe and supportive environment for an absolute acting legend to shine.

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Awards, Documentary

Hilla Medalia on Silent Protest, Sorrow and Her Oscar-Nominated Documentary ‘Children No More: Were and are Gone’

Hilla Medalia discusses filming a female-led Tel Aviv vigil where silence becomes the most radical, devastating protest against the killing of innocents.

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Awards, Documentary

Alison McAlpine Finds the Universe in the Unhurried Gaze of Donkeys in Oscar-Nominated Doc ‘perfectly a strangeness’

In the vastness of the desert, Alison McAlpine follows three donkeys into an abandoned observatory and discovers a new language for what a story can be.

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Awards, Live Action

Natalie Musteata & Alexandre Singh Weaponise Absurdism Against Authoritarianism in ‘Two People Exchanging Saliva’

Oscar-winning writer/directors Natalie Musteata & Alexandre Singh on building a Swiss-watch satire where a slap is currency and a kiss is a capital offence.

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Awards, Documentary

Joshua Seftel Finds the Weight of Absence in the Specific and Small in Oscar-Winning Doc ‘All the Empty Rooms’

Stripping back commentary and even dialogue, Joshua Seftel builds a documentary film about gun violence from silence and the objects children left behind.

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forevergreen_short_film

Animation, Awards

How Nathan Engelhardt & Jeremy Spears Turned a “Love-Letter to Stop-Motion” into Oscar-Contender ‘Forevergreen’

Challenged by truth to materials, Nathan Engelhardt & Jeremy Spears developed a unique replacement animation system to give digital assets a physical weight.

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Awards, Live Action

Meyer Levinson-Blount’s Oscar-Nominated Short ‘Butcher’s Stain’ Asks Who Gets Blamed When Tragedy Strikes

With close-quarters craft, student director Meyer Levinson-Blount transforms collective trauma into an intimate portrait of one man's quiet fight for dignity.

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Animation, Awards

Konstantin Bronzit Defines the Gestures That Underscore Meaning in His Oscar-Nominated Short ‘The Three Sisters’

A simple life for three island-dwelling sisters is thrown into chaos in Konstantin Bronzit's controversially received Oscar-nominated animation short.

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Awards, Live Action

Sam Davis Crafts an Ode to Vulnerability Via Men Who’d Never Dream of Showing It in Oscar-Winner ‘The Singers’

Through wholly unconventional casting, Sam Davis spotlights the unsung talents at the heart of his genre-bending short about men finally being heard, together.

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Animation, Awards

How “Lowering the Stakes” Led John Kelly to Strike Creative Gold with Oscar-Nominated Short ‘Retirement Plan’

John Kelly shares how a realisation he needed “to do more with less” guided him in creating the multi-award-winning animated short film 'Retirement Plan'.

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