The British Academy of Film and Television Arts has released its 2019 nominations and ASFF is thrilled to see that three of our official selection have been shortlisted for the prestigious awards.

2019 is shaping up to be a great year for Wale director Barnaby Blackburn. Already shortlisted for the 91st Academy Awards, this BAFTA nomination follows a year of festival successes including winning Best Thriller at the 2018 Aesthetica Short Film Festival.

Wale is the titular character in this spiralling modern classic; a former young offender looking for a new life, he starts up his own enterprise as a mechanic, a trade which he learnt in an offender’s institute. Predictably, as a young black man with a criminal past, he finds little luck in his entrepreneurship until he is given a chance to prove himself by a stranger.

But as his new opportunity unfolds, it quickly transpires that the stranger’s intentions are not quite as they seemed, and Wale is plunged in to a sinister plot, framed for a unimaginable crime, painting a vivid, unfortunately realistic and all too common portrait of modern day racism and racial profiling. Wale bluntly tackles the subject of discrimination and scapegoating that still persists in modern societies.

The Blue Door is a quietly disturbing and terrifying thriller wracked with lingering suspense. The film stars Gemma Whelan (Game of Thrones, End of the F***ing World) as a district nurse visiting a new patient at her dilapidated home. Lying motionless in bed, the elderly woman’s shell-shocked gaze fixates on the door in the corner of the room. As the nurse’s attentions are drawn to rumblings beyond the door, it soon becomes apparent that the house and its occupant harbour a sinister secret and the nurse has fallen prey to an unimaginable and inescapable evil entity.

Taylor’s chilling vision screened in competition for Best Thriller at ASFF in 2018. Featuring no dialogue, an artistic choice by the films crew, The Blue Door relies solely on intensely eerie sound design to capture and distort audience imaginations, immersing them in a horrifying nightmare.

The Brothers McCleod are no strangers to the BAFTAs having received a nomination for their film Codswallop at the 62nd awards as well as receiving three further nominations for the Children’s Bafta’s, one of which they went on to win in 2011 for Quiff and Boot. The pair also have a long-standing relationship with the Aesthetica Short Film Festival, both as exhibitors and as guest speakers.

The Brothers’ newly shortlisted work, Marfa, is a documentary animation made using ink and watercolour techniques. The film paints a portrait of the small city of Marfa, Texas; a place out of time, famed for those who have passed through it, including James Dean, as well as a mecca for minimalist art. The film is a result of a visit to the city made by Greg McLeod; a scrapbook of audio clips, photographs and footage presented in the pairs unique animated style.