Two Short Nights Film Festival Moves Online

Film lovers rejoice! This February you can enjoy Two Short Nights Film Festival from the comfort of your sofa. Our annual celebration of the world of short film has moved online and is available to stream on demand from Film Festival Plus.

Shorts #5: Local Talent

A showcase dedicated to the most promising emerging filmmaking talent from across the South West.

Programme

Backwoods
Dir. Ryan Mackfall | 15 mins | UK
1907, Massachusetts. A scholar drifts from his path and finds himself in a house he takes for deserted. Deserted, apart from a beguiling book containing dark secrets that exerts a powerful hold over those who come into contact with it.

Choker
Dir. Orson Cornick | 4 mins | UK
As a girl drops from the sky onto a crowded beach, a mysterious man drives at breakneck speed towards her.

Spiral
Dir. Camilla Joyce | 5 mins | UK
A woman talks to her Mum in a difficult situation. 

An Tarow
Dir. Jonny Dry | 17 mins | UK
A shadow seems to follow Peder wherever he goes. Whilst happiest in the open landscapes around the Quoit close to his home, he cannot shake the presence of a bull – An Tarow – that threatens to overwhelm him and his mother Cara. He knows his father is violent and has become numb to what happens downstairs after he’s gone to bed. Yet his mother keeps him as removed as she can through their shared love of folktales. Gradually his mother’s stories of Bucca’s, Piskies and Knockers give Peder an entirely new means of escape, along with a growing sense of strength. His journeys to school become a hunt for any sign of their presence and whilst still wary of what he hears from downstairs, he begins to imagine confronting what he was previously fearful of.

Overload
Dir. Joe Blandamer | 5 mins | UK
How does it feel to have autism and ride on a busy train? This brilliant stop-motion animation explores what it feels like when an everyday situation begins to feel a bit too much.

Wake
Dir. Katie Beard & Naomi Turner | 8 mins | UK
Wake is a short dance film which explores and responds to modern attitudes around loss and grief, taking inspiration from different rituals and funeral traditions from around the world. Filmed on the stark and shifting terrain of Dartmoor, WAKE steers us through one’s woman’s journey of grief.

Black Voices of Somerset
Dir. Emma Grazette | 7 mins | UK
Filmmaker Emma Grazette brings her microphone to the overlooked and unheard voices of people of colour across Somerset, asking, simply ‘What is Somerset to you?’

Canvey Island
Dir. Isla Ure | 12 mins | UK 
Reckless mum, Ronnie, kidnaps her daughter, Summer, from foster care and takes her to a childhood haunt in search of a new life. But with nowhere to live and a bad reputation standing in the way of a job, it seems Canvey Island may not be the sanctuary she dreamed of.

Stream now >>

Main image: Canvey Island, dir. Isla Ure