AWARDS 2021

Jury

London Short Film Festival are proud to announce their 2021 international jury to deliberate (remotely) on this festival’s official competition selection.

We welcome pioneering British-Nigerian filmmaker Ngozi Onwurah (Welcome II The Terrordome), performer (-painter-curator-composer-film scholar-gender-queer art icon) Vaginal Davis, and curator, producer and former executive director of imagiNATIVE Jason Ryle to award our key prizes to this festival’s competition-qualifying UK and international short films.

NGOZI ONWURAH

@ngozionwu

Born in Newcastle in 1964 and brought up in Nigeria, Ngozi Onwurah graduated as a director from the UK's National Film and Television School. Her first short film, Coffee Coloured Children (1988), achieved international film festival success, followed with further dramas and documentaries for a number of UK and international broadcasters, including groundbreaking BBC series South Of The Border. Her first feature film Welcome II The Terrordome (1995) was the first commercially released British feature by a Black woman director. She currently resides in Los Angeles, where she lectures, as well as working on new film projects.

Image credit: Ngozi Onwurah

VAGINAL DAVIS

@vaginaldavis_official | www.vaginaldavis.com

Vaginal Davis is the internationally revered, intersexed doyenne of intermedia arts and sciences taking public discourse to Dementia 13 levels, spelling out the queer and blatino experience in her own inemitable fashion.

Born in LA, she has been based in Berlin since 2005 where she has been a member of art collective CHEAP since 2001. She is a guest professor at Work.Master, HEAD Genève and curates the performative film programme Contemporary Vinegar Syndrome at Arsenal Institute für Film und Video Kunst.

Image credit: John Vlautin

JASON RYLE

@jasonryle

Jason Ryle is a producer and programmer based in Toronto, Canada. From July 2010 to June 2020, Jason was the Executive Director of the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, the world’s largest showcase of shorts and features made by Indigenous filmmakers. From 2013 until 2020, he was an Advisor for Indigenous films at the Berlinale. Jason has produced two short animations and is currently in development as a producer on new projects.

Image credit: Jason Ryle

Awards

BEST BRITISH SHORT FILM

Sponsored by the British Council

The Best British Short Film Award celebrates groundbreaking short filmmaking from within the UK, using both form and content to produce impactful, challenging work.

Encompassing narrative filmmaking and the more abstract, documentary and animation, this award spotlights the multiplicity and diversity of British creators and creativity.

The Best British Short Film Award winner will receive a £1000 grant towards supporting travel to an international festival, or to attend a training and development opportunity of their choice.

A Special Mention will be awarded £500 grant for the same type of support.

BEST INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM

The Best International Short Film Award champions filmmaking from across the globe that interprets cultural, political and social concerns in bold and exploratory ways. The qualifying works reflect the diversity in formal innovation, aesthetics and perspective that the international short film community has to offer.

The Best International Short Film award winner will receive a £2000 grant towards their next project.

A Special Mention will be awarded £500 towards their next project.

THE TAASH AWARD FOR COMEDY IN FILM

Sponsored by Mark Rylance and the Van Kampen family

Comedy is always an audience favourite at LSFF, and a beloved genre of our short filmmakers.

Getting a laugh is a rare talent - subjective to each one of us watching, whilst a universal experience when it’s gotten right - and this award acknowledges those filmmakers finessing comedy on screen.

All qualifying UK films can be found in the Funny Shit programme.

In celebration of the life of promising filmmaker Nataasha Van Kampen, this award remembers her boundless talent and humour, as founded and sponsored by her stepfather, Mark Rylance.

The winner of the Taash Award For Comedy In Film will receive an award of £1000 towards their next project.

BEST LO-BUDGET SHORT FILM

In association with Intermission Youth

LSFF has always championed a little DIY rebelliousness in short filmmaking, while being aware there’s a method to that madness.

Our Lo-Budget Mayhem programme has been the festival’s traditional celebration of such filmmaking, and this award recognises work that is imaginative, resourceful and tells stories with limited-to-no resources and a good dose of wit. All qualifying films can be found in the Lo-Budget Mayhem programmes (here, here and here).

This festival’s award will be deliberated on by a jury (Micah Loubon, 23; Rakiya Idris Hasan, 20; Sian-Leigh Moore, 19; Kashif Douglas, 26; Abigail Sewell, 26) selected from Intermission Youth’s filmmaking group.

The Best Lo-Budget Short winner will receive an award of £500.

Intermission Youth gives disadvantaged young Londoners the tools to make positive choices and become the best version of themselves through drama, film and mentoring.