Live Action Category

Live Action, Premiere

Jessica Barr Blurs Performance And Personal Trauma In Her Intimate, Visually Claustrophobic Acting Short ‘Private Moments’

Jessica Barr discusses using the meta-narrative of an acting class to explore the pressure on female filmmakers to mine personal trauma for their art.

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Live Action, Premiere

Amir Youssef Constructs a Tender Child’s-Eye View of Personal Loss Amongst Historical Rupture in ‘Dawn Every Day’

Using wide lenses and a meticulous B&W palette, director Amir Youssef locks us at eye-level with an eight-year-old boy grappling with a world coming apart.

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Live Action, Premiere

Love and Loathing Intertwine in Katie Lambert’s Perfectly Formed Teenage Desire Comedy ‘I Hate Helen’

Katie Lambert take us all back to school and maps out the disco choreography and swimming pool shooting of her effervescent coming of age comedy short.

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Awards, Live Action

Harry Lighton Navigates the Intersection of Kink and Suburban Mundanity In His Subversive Queer BIFA Feature ‘Pillion

DN alum Harry Lighton discusses crafting a visual language that finds the tenderness within the transgressive intimacy of his tender tale of queer first love.

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Awards, Live Action

Gus Flind-Henry & George Malcher Capture the Chaos and Heart of Teaching in BIFA Nominated Short ‘A Sisyphean Task’

Gus Flind-Henry and George Malcher share how small moments, big pressures and authenticity shaped their portrait of teaching in a South London state school.

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Awards, Live Action

Cal McMau Directs Balletic Violence and Claustrophobic Tension in His BIFA Winning Prison Thriller ‘Wasteman’

Cal McMau reveals how he embraced tight confines when choreographing the violence in his BIFA-nominated debut feature portrait of a merciless prison ecosystem.

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Live Action

Isabella Eklöf on Condemning the Ones We Love in Her Adaptation of Nick Cave’s ‘The Death of Bunny Munro’

Isabella Eklöf talks to DN about her TV adaptation of Nick Cave's novel, starring Matt Smith as a sex addicted salesman in what may be his best performance

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Awards, Live Action

Personal Grief and Political Upheaval Intertwine in Akinola Davies Jr.’s BIFA Winning ‘My Father’s Shadow’

Akinola Davies Jr. discusses the making of his semi-autobiographical feature 'My Father's Shadow', a debut leading this year's BIFAs with 12 nominations.

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Awards, Live Action

Laura Carreira Crafts a Sensory Portrait of Gig Worker Loneliness in Her Multi BIFA Nominated Debut ‘On Falling’

Laura Carreira explains why removing antagonists sharpened her film's critique of the gig economy and its deleterious effect on he isolated Portuguese migrant.

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Live Action

A Grieving Man Confronts Unconscious Desires in Jacob Samuels’ Dark Suburban Comedy ‘I Want My Mommy’

Jacob Samuels guides us through the delicate tonal tightrope of his unconventional tale of grief, cringe-inducing confession and existential woe.

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Awards, Live Action

The Rapid Escalation of Mob Mentality Consumes a Welsh Village in Mac Nixon’s Enigmatic BIFA Nominated Horror ‘Flock’

Mac Nixon discusses building a timeless and stark world in his monochrome horror, where a lone farmer becomes the target of his neighbours' panicked fear.

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Live Action, Premiere

Housemate Tensions Morph Into a Surreal Nightmare in Hansel Rodrigues & Ieuan Coombs’ Comedy ‘An Indirect Message’

Rodrigues & Coombs delve into visualising sleepless anxiety and awkward Britishness with bold theatrical lighting, composed frames and chaotic handheld shots.

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