Best of Festival Award

The Hold, dir. JD Donnelly

A real-time journey into the mind and experience of champion free-diver Alice Hickson as she performs her record 7-and-a-half minute breath hold, an extraordinary feat of focus and endurance.

Best Advertising Award

Swimming With Butterflies, dir. Karl Stelter

After missing bronze by merely a 1/100th of a second at the 2016 Paralympic games, Austin-based swimmer Lizzi Smith shares an intimate story of how she is bringing hope to the next generation. 

Best of Animation Award

Wild Animal, dir. Tianyun Lyu

Wild Animal follows a young boy as he attempts to save a wolf pup in the Mongolian wilderness, before eventually being saved by his own father, a hunter who is familiar with the harsh terrain.

Best Artists’ Film Award

Mother Company,
Dirs. Alexandros Raptotasios & Konstantinos Thomaidis

Mother Company follows a children’s choir amidst an abandoned power plant in Greece. It reflects on environmental catastrophe and economic deprivation, as well as the promised “Green Future.”

Best Comedy Award

Dating in Your 20s, dir. Lily Rutterford & Lucy Minderides

The film’s protagonist nips to the toilet on a date, where she finds a band of puppets. The musical stream of consciousness paints a relatable and chaotic picture of what it is like to date in your 20s.

Best Dance Award

Spoken Movement Family Honour, dir. Daniel Gurton

In a British-Ghanaian household bound by tradition and religion, a young girl lives under the constant control of her abusive father. At the family dinner table, heated arguments uncover a deep rift.

Best Documentary Award

The Hold, dir. JD Donnelly

A real-time journey into the mind and experience of champion free-diver Alice Hickson as she performs her record 7-and-a0half minute breath hold, an extraordinary feat of focus and endurance.

Best Documentary Feature

Torn, dir. Kullar Viimne

Kalju is a lonely arborist who lives on a hill in the forest. He was in love, but his wife left and took their child. When his daughter calls to say she’s pregnant, Kalju reflects on his past mistakes.

Best Drama Award

El Corazón, dir. Oscar Simmons

This film is set in the vibrant world of 1950s Mexican wrestling. An upcoming luchador, El Corazón, is consumed with a lust for vengeance towards the world’s most renowned name, El Tigre.

Best Experimental Award

We Will Be Who We Are, dir. Priscillia Kounkou Hoveyda

In Sierra Leone, friends Aya and Boi decide to marry each other to escape society’s pressures to conform. This is a reclamation of traditional African ideas of gender as existing outside the binary.

Best Fashion Film Award

Fugue, dir. Nastassia Nikè Swan Yin Winge

Fugue is a meditation on anonymity in a world of endless replicas. Exploring the fluidity of identity, where the self is constructed and is constantly shifting between recognition and obscurity. 

Best Family Friendly Award

Girls Together dir. Christie Arnold

Every summer, friends Rena, Zep and Lauren build a fort in the woods out of forgotten furniture. On this final summer day, Rena struggles to tell her friends a secret she’s been hiding from them. 

Best Music Video Award

Tank, dir. Garath Whyte

Tank is a surreal trip into the internal struggles of a young woman experiencing long-term health issues. The journey emphasises the importance of compassion towards those who are suffering.

Best Narrative Feature

Disremember, dir. Matthew Simpson

An ex-military alcoholic desperately tries to stop experiencing unexplained blackouts to save his marriage, only to discover they are triggered by a trauma his mind is fighting to forget. 

Best Thriller

Scope, dir. Emma Moffat

With guidance from her therapist, Antonia tries to uncover the reason behind her intense and growing obsession with circles, a fixation that threatens to spiral out of control if she doesn’t act.

Best VR & Immersive

Xian’er (Chinese Immortals), dir. Fang Zhou

Ancient Chinese immortals descend to Earth to seek employment and compete to secure statues to inhabit. This experience traces the collision between traditional culture and present-day society.

Best Game

Blue Prince, dev. Dogubomb

Navigate through shifting corridors and ever-changing chambers in this genre-defying strategy puzzle adventure. But will your unpredictable path lead you to the mysterious, rumoured Room 46?

Best Cinematography Award

Baby, dir. Simisolaoluwa Akande

In a fluorescent pink wig and an unflinching smile on her socials, Baby sells an airbrushed life in Europe to entice young Nigerian girls. Behind the filtered posts, there lies a more harrowing truth.

Best Podcast

Reality Looks Back, Anne Jeppesen

This narrative dives into the mysterious quantum nature underlying our lives, exploring the various ways we experience a reality that is far less certain & more fascinating than it appears at the first glance.

Best Director Award

Cuerpos, dir. Reiff Gaskell

In 1941, Ana, a young maid, joins the employment of a powerful Contessa in rural Spain. On her first day on the job, Ana must survive the collapse of the household in post-Civil War Spain. 

Best Editing Award

No One Really Knows Me Well, dir. Gaia

A lonely young man, desperate for connection, misinterprets the kindness of a shopkeeper and spirals into desperation when his longing turns to rejection, pushing him to the brink of no return.

Best Screenplay

Giants, screenwriter Alex Oates, dir. Andy Berriman

Sandy is an isolated teen who finds unexpected purpose when a conspiracy theorist, Don, tasks him with destroying a wind farm in the declining post-industrial village of Cambois, North Blyth.