Shorts

Often how distinguished directors first cut their teeth, we shine a spotlight on the craft, scope and power of short film, including lyrical and impassioned examples from Terence Davies and Ridley Scott.

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  • White Men Are Cracking Up

    Masie Blue is an enigmatic Black Widow figure under investigation by detective Margrave for her involvement in the suicides of successful white men. Through the blurred lines of perception and reality, the myth of the black feminine mystique is explored under the guise of a murder mystery. Writte...

  • Ten Bob in Winter

    An early classic of Black British cinema about the intriguing social dynamics that arise as a ten shilling note is passed around the black community. A student borrows ten bob from a white man and then in turn lends it to a natty musician. Later, when the student meets an upstanding member of the...

  • The Cicerones

    English tourist John Trant (Mark Gatiss) visits an East European cathedral in search of an obscure religious painting. There he encounters enigmatic guides, who lead him deep into the strange church, where horror awaits... With the unnerving black humour you'd expect from League of Gentlemen pedi...

  • Sleepwalker

    When wealthy couple Richard and Angela visit Marion and Alex in their decaying family home, an evening of drunkenness and sexual rivalry turns bloody as the guests fall victim to an unhinged attacker. Featuring a rare performance from director Bill Douglas (Bill Douglas Trilogy, Comrades), and st...

  • To Have and to Hold

    This ghoulish short has a truly gripping premise. Distracted by her boyfriend while driving on a quiet country lane, a young woman regains consciousness in their wrecked car to find herself hand in hand with her lover. But his lifeless hand, frozen by rigor mortis refuses to let go. John Hardwick...

  • Rose Red

    Simon Pummell's (Bodysong) visually ravishing sci-fi thriller exploring the future of virtual reality and the desire to transcend human limits. The theft of an experimental drug to suppress the immune system reveals a case of virtual reality addiction and forces a detective to confront his night...

  • The Peaches

    If Edward Lear had been alive in the 60s, he may well have made The Peaches, Britain's short film entry at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival. A very beautiful, very clever girl (played by future Adam Adamant Lives! star Juliet Harmer) adores peaches, but when she falls in love the world's supply star...

  • 9 Dalmuir West

    Kevin Brownlow’s portrait of the last days of Glasgow’s tram system centres on the last tram to run in 1962, accentuating the mood of the final journey by contrasting shots of the event to the funky sounds of Joe Meek and The Tornados’ Telstar, a symbol of the modern world to which the tram no lo...

  • Night Mail

    The flagship of the GPO Film Unit's output and a cornerstone of British documentary. Harry Watt and Basil Wright's study of the down postal express stands as a beacon for John Grierson's original purpose for documentary - to make the working man the hero of the screen. A truly collaborative effor...

  • Piccadilly Circus by Night

    European emigre Tanya moves to London to work as a family au pair. Still grieving for her recently deceased father and rejected by an old girlfriend, Tanya draws closer to her employer's husband. The sights and sounds of the Capital at Christmas form a deceptively romantic backdrop for this bri...

  • Smart Alek

    The 1970s, and a suburban family depart for their summer holiday. But as tensions rise and tempers fray, a terrible accident sees their cosy world disintegrate. Director Andrew Kötting (Gallivant, Swandown) and co-writer Sean Lock inject real terror into the everyday nightmare of a family vacatio...

  • G.G. Passion

    A rare chance to see an extremely elusive short; one of a handful of films directed by celebrated photographer David Bailey. This singular take on the mania of the swinging sixties - from one of its key protagonists - follows an ageing pop singer as he is hounded by mysterious assassins.
    The re...

  • Random Acts of Intimacy

    What drives people to have sex with complete strangers? That's the subject of this bold and insightful film, based on interviews with five men and women who describe the chance encounters that led to impulsive sex. Director Clio Barnard uses performers to lip-sync their recorded confessions, merg...

  • Red

    A beautiful tale of love, loss, new beginnings and the strange adventure taken by migrants to the UK. In 1977, young Xiao Mei leaves China for the UK to enter into an arranged marriage. Speaking no English and feeling distant from her Elvis-obsessed new husband and his stern mother, Xiao Mei drea...

  • Dead London

    Paul and Nick are an odd duo who have developed a method that allows them to predict the sudden death of unsuspecting innocents in London. When their unbroken record of accurate predictions is threatened by an American tourist who discovers their theory, the morose forecasters start to unravel. A...

  • Floating

    Disturbed by visions of a labyrinthine London about to be consumed by water, a lonely father begins to destroy his family's tower block flat in order to make room for an unlikely refuge in their front room. Eerie, absurdist and darkly comic, this brilliant psychodrama won director Richard Heslop ...