The Aesthetica Short Film Festival returned for its sixth year, running 3 – 6 November in 18 distinct venues across York. This year’s festival screened 400 films as part of its Official Selection and presented a number of Showcase Screenings from leading cultural institutions. ASFF and the Northern Film School at Leeds Beckett University teamed up to present a new award for 2016, celebrating Best Screenplay in the Official Selection. New events included Morning Coffee at McGees – a place to discuss best practice – and the industry sessions such as Meet the Film Festivals returned by popular demand. More than 25 masterclasses with key speakers from the film world today offered essential advice and support for both emerging and established practitioners.
90 Grad Nord, Detsky Graffam, K17 Films (Comedy Winner)
Lay Me Low, Marlene Millar, Migration (Dance Winner)
Irregulars, Fabio Palmieri, NotWorkingFilms (Documentary Winner, and Festival Winner)
Silence, Dejan Mrkic (Drama Winner)
Two Signs' Den – Epilogue, Bruno Decc, Filme Filmes (Experimental Winner)
Breaking Rules, Victor Claramunt, 3Tristesteasers & Ryu MEdia (Fashion Winner)
Beardyman - Mountainside, Lewis Rose, Unihill Productions (Music Video Winner)
Cork Man, Dawn Han (Thriller Winner)
Litterbugs, Peter Stanley-Ward, Treehouse Digital Ltd & Mighty Atom Entertainment Ltd (Youth Vote Winner)
Rhonna & Donna, Daina O. Pusic, Creative England / Dan Films (Northern Film School Award for Best Screenplay)
Dust & Resin, Stephen Parker, Manor Hill Productions & Chrome Productions (People's Choice Winner)
Irregulars, Fabio Palmieri, NotWorkingFilms (Documentary Winner, and Festival Winner)
Highlights from ASFF 2016
Feedback
York is a beautiful place and ASFF is a diverse, exciting and innovative festival. Congratulations on delivering such a great festival and I hope I get to come back next year!
Many thanks for staging another great festival and inviting the Association of Camera Operators. Everyone at ASFF 2016 made us all feel most welcome. We all felt the session was a great success.
It was great to catch up with filmmakers and festival folks alike, for another great Aesthetica Short Film Festival
Thanks again to you and the team for an amazing festival experience. Hands down the best organised festival we have attended – so much love, passion and effort went into making it all possible; congratulations!
ASFF 2016 was an excellent festival in a most beautiful and conducive venue. It was very satisfying that your team were able to sell out my masterclass session, which went very smoothly and seemed to go down well.
I just wanted to say a massive thank you for another fantastic year of Aesthetica! It was great to have our film selected and great to be able to visit a buzzing York.
Just wanted to say how brilliant this weekend was, we loved every minute of it. A totally new experience for us AND we couldn’t believe how beautiful York is and how friendly the people are. The festival was everywhere! Something for next year’s calendar already.
We still can’t believe we won Best Drama. Blown away! I’ll be spreading the word wide and far about what a well-run, fun, entertaining festival ASFF is!
It was a pleasure to visit York and see so much of your festival. I got to speak with a lot of delegates and film-makers and viewed many shorts, some of which I hope we can programme at DIFF in 2016.
We really enjoyed our stay in York and got to see some very high quality films. We would be delighted to come back next year and catch more of the programme. Congratulations on an incredible event.
The programmes and parties were great! I’ve rarely seen such a well-attended, popular festival. It was also a real honour to win the York Youth Award. We’ll be back in force next year, hopefully with a couple more films!
Thank you so much for including The Sand Storm, it was quite an honour to have my film appear with so many other fine works.
Congratulations on an amazing festival! ASFF was brilliant. I had such a good time, met some wonderful people and saw so much truly extraordinary work. I feel like I learned an extraordinary amount.
