Live Action Category

Live Action

A Musician Forms a Wordless Connection With His Neighbour in Jimmy Olsson’s Reflective Drama ‘Notes’

Jimmy Olsson reveals how the music of Beethoven inspired 'Notes', his short film about two neighbours forming an emotional connection through walls.

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Live Action

Hayato Ando Foresees a Service Which Returns the Deceased for 49 Days in Near Future Sci-Fi ‘Son of Memory’

Hayato Ando breaks down how he cinematically represented digitally-recreated loved ones for his philosophical sci-fi drama 'Son of Memory'.

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Live Action

Skinner Myers Captures the Harrowing Final Moments of a Falsely Accused Black Man in ‘Frank Embree’

Skinner Myers reveals how he captured the legacy of a Black man wrongfully murdered over 100 years ago on 35mm film in biographical drama 'Frank Embree'.

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Live Action

Emotional Connections Are Forged in Unlikely Places in Paavo Hanninen’s Identity-Swapping Drama ‘Tourist’

Paavo Hanninen reveals how he used the pre-packaged expectations of New Orleans to find the central human drama of his 16mm short 'Tourist'.

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Live Action

A Young Woman Falls for the Seductive Allure of a Tilt-a-Whirl in Zoé Wittocks Fantastical Romance Debut ‘Jumbo’

Zoé Wittock provides an insight into the production practicalities of choreographing the many moving parts of her objectophilia romance feature 'Jumbo'.

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Live Action

A Hapless Young Man Seeking a Connection Bares All in Sam Baron’s Provocative Tragicomedy ‘The Orgy’

Sam Baron speaks to DN about a hastily drawn up improv phrase that bloomed into endearing short ‘The Orgy’ a title which misleads the film's true tone.

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Live Action

Lian Meng Rose Dramatises a Drastic Shift in British History for NFTS-produced Mining Tale ‘Stratum Deep’

Lian Meng Rose's reveals how he combined 16mm film grain and immersive sound design to bring the mines to life in historical fiction drama 'Stratum Deep'.

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Hello Ma'am

Live Action, Premiere

Owen Schwartzbard’s ‘Hello Ma’am’ Mixes Media to Subvert the Traditional Symbolism of the American Dream

Owen Schwartzbard explains his love of camcorder footage and why he blended it with a more polished look for his dark grifter tale 'Hello Ma'am'.

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Live Action

Paavo Hanninen Channels Quarantine Paranoia for His Strange Romantic Comedy Short ‘I Think I’m Dying’

Paavo Hanninen walks DN through the process of mapping a 3D model of his own house to cinematically storyboard his comedy short 'I Think I'm Dying'.

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Live Action

Talia Smith Mines Her History of Growing up in South Africa for Oscar-Winning Domestic Motherhood Drama ‘Umama’

Talia Smith recounts how her personal history informed the diasporic tension she exorcised through her Student Academy Award-winning NYU drama 'Umama'.

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Live Action, Premiere

A Young Down Syndrome Man Adopts a Heroic Identity to Confess a Lifelong Love in Émile V. Schlesser’s ‘Superhero’

Émile V. Schlesser speaks to DN about the challenges of executing an ambitious water-based set piece for his debut short film 'Supehero'.

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Documentary, Live Action

Jerry Rothwell’s ‘The Reason I Jump’ Viscerally Brings the World of Non-Speaking Autism to Life

Jerry Rothwell takes DN inside the 360° sound and hyper-stylised portraiture of his enthralling documentary depiction of life with non-speaking autism.

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