NFTS Archives - Directors Notes

A Darkly Obsessed Woman Contemplates the End of Everything in Matthew B.C.’s Comedy Short ‘Death!’

Matthew B.C. tells DN how he and his crew maximised their minimal budget to create a high-quality short that's both funny and unsettling.

Animation, Awards

José Prats Reminds Us To Honour Our Parents With His BAFTA Nominated Short Film ‘Adiós’

When BAFTA recognition means your grandma finally understands your job: José Prats on bridging personal filmmaking and professional acclaim.

Awards, Live Action

A Father’s Loneliness Erupts Corporeally In Matty Crawford’s SXSW Winning BAFTA Body Horror ‘Stomach Bug’

Matty Crawford chats to DN about building the horror fuelled landscape of his psychological drama about a lonely parent suffering from empty nest syndrome.

Awards, Live Action

A Singular Young Man’s Resiliency Captures the Collective Horrors of War in Franz Böhm’s ‘Rock Paper Scissors’

Franz Böhm breaks down how he built two distinct visual worlds in his BAFTA nominated Ukraine war drama where a makeshift hospital faces enemy attack.

Live Action, Premiere

Marcus Anthony Thomas Crafts a Unique Exploration of What Makes Us Human in Minimalist Sci-Fi Short ‘Space Plug’

Marcus Anthony Thomas details how leaping into the unknown forced him to expand his directorial skills during the creation of his singular B&W sci-fi short.

Live Action, Premiere

Jordan Chandler Plunges Us Into a Mother’s Relentless Surreal Nightmare in Her Psychological Wild Ride ‘Brutal’

Jordan Chandler talks about channelling her righteous indignation into her blistering thriller about a mother on a Sisyphean quest to save her missing child.

Awards, Documentary

Miranda Stern’s Cathartic NFTS Documentary ‘milk’ Is an Intimate Exploration of Maternity, Addiction and Loss

Miranda Stern unpacks the cathartic and narrative reasons she opted for an abstract, mixed media scrapbook-style approach for her self-explorative doc short.

Animation

Mansi Maheshwari Depicts the Nightmarish Nature of Parental Lies in Feverish Animated Cannes Short ‘Bunnyhood’

Mansi Maheshwari walks DN through how she created the intense and frenetic scrawled animation style of her manic Cannes-selected NFTS grad short.

Film Festival

Ten Eye-Catching Shorts at the 2024 National Film and Television School Graduate Showcase

Covering films featured in the Fiction, Animation and Comedy programmes, DN highlights ten shorts screening as part of the 2024 NFTS Graduate Showcase.

Animation

A Rite of Passage Fishing Ritual Challenges a Father-Son Relationship in Ross Stringer’s BAFTA Winner ‘Crab Day’

Ross Stringer breaks down the deceptively minimal monochrome colour palette he used to tell the thematically rich story of his NFTS graduate short.

Live Action

Yasmin Afifi’s BAFTA Winner ‘Jellyfish & Lobster’ Extols the Joys of Living Without Conforming to Expectations

Writer/Director Yasmin Afifi tells DN why magical realism was the perfect genre in which to tell her dark comedic story about finding joy at the end of life.

Live Action, Premiere

A Screenwriting Professor Experiences a Kafkaesque Descent in Harry Sherriff’s ‘Jeremy: A Nightmare’

Harry Sherriff returns to reveal how his creative development at the NFTS informed his latest nightmarish comedy about a man pitted against his doppelgänger.

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