Thirty-five international filmmakers are set to compete for £30,000 prize money as the organisers of Cardiff’s International LGBT+ Short Film Prize, Supported by The Michael Bishop Foundation have today announced the shortlisted films in competition for the world’s largest international LGBT+ short film prize. The Iris Prize LGBT+ Film Festival runs 6th to 11th October at www.irisprize.org
Iris Prize has 25 international partner festivals who nominate films each year for the Iris Prize shortlist, with the rest being chosen by a pre-selection jury from a record number of films entered through open submissions.
UK audiences can join in the experience for the first time in the festival’s history, by watching all the nominated shorts for free online, ensuring it reaches a wider audience than ever.
Directors from India, China, Brazil and Macedonia compete with counterparts from the UK and around the world, offering dramatically diverse representations within the global LGBT+ community. Filmmakers share personal family expectations and the intimacy of relationships alongside the transformative impacts of meeting the right person at the right time. They stand alongside sobering stories of cultural, political or even family restraints that mean fighting for the freedom to be true to self, overcoming fear, hostility and alienation. We encounter characters who are tentatively exploring their sexuality for the first time or breaking free of their past to embrace unique identities and genders. Plus, at a time when we need it most, there are reminders that there is plenty to be joyful about, and reason to laugh out loud.
The one uniting factor in all 35 films is an exhilarating celebration of lives of LGBT+ people across the world.
The festival opens on Tuesday 6th October and closes on Sunday 11th October, with all screenings, talks and events available online for free. There will also be a pay-per-view catch-up service which will run until the end of October.
This year’s shortlisted films in alphabetical order are:
1-1 (Sweden, 2020) – directed by Naures Sager
ALL GOOD THINGS (Australia, 2019) – directed by Simon Croker
BABY (USA, 2019) – directed by Jessie Levandov
BATHROOM TROLL (USA, 2018) – directed by Aaron Immediato
BLACK LIPS (Australia, 2018) – directed by Adrian Chiarella BLACKN3SS (Brazil, 2018) – directed by Diego Paulino
BOYS (BANIM) (Israel, 2020) – directed by Lior Soroka
BREAK IN (USA, 2020) – directed by Alyssa Lerner
CICADA (Czech Republic, 2020) – Piaoyu Xie
DIRTY (USA, 2020) – Matthew Puccini
DOWN DOG (USA, 2020) – directed by Shae Xu
DRIFTING (China, USA, 2019) – directed by Hanxiong Bo
HIS NAME (HANN) (Iceland, 2018) – directed by Runar Thor
OCTOBER (USA, 2019) – directed by Mae Mann
ON MY WAY (Belgium, 2020) – directed by Sonam Larcin
ORVILLE + BOB (USA, 2019) – directed by Alan Griswold
PEACH (Australia, 2020) – Rowan Devereux & Sophie Saville
PRETTY GIRL (CAILÍN ÁLAINN) (Ireland, 2019) – directed by Megan K Fox)
QUEENS (UK, 2020) – directed by Nick Bechman
SAVING CHINTU (India, 2020) – directed by Tushar Tyagi
SELMA AFTER THE RAIN (Brazil, 2019) – directed by Loli Menezes
SHEAR AVORY: TO BE CONTINUED (USA, 2020) – directed by Abram Cerda
SHHH! (HYSJ!) (Norway, 2019) directed by Nini Kjeldner
SHORT CALF MUSCLE (Netherlands, 2019) – directed by Victoria Warmerdam
SNAKE (Macedonia, 2020) – directed by Andrey Volkashin
THE CYPHER (USA, 2020) – directed by Letia Solomon
THE PASSING (UK, 2020) – directed by Nichola Wong
THE SHAWL (USA, 2020) – directed by Sara Kiener THE WAY WE ARE (Canada, 2020) – directed by Amanda Ann-Min Wong
THRIVE (UK, 2019) – directed by Jamie Di Spirito UNTITLED SEQUENCE OF GAPS (Germany, 2020) – directed by Vika Kirchenbauer
VICTORIA (Spain, 2020 – directed by Daniel Toledo Saura) WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THE RING (Taiwan, 2020) – directed by Yichi Chen
WHEN IN ROME (PAESE CHE VAI) (Italy, 2020) – directed by Luca Padrini WINGS (UK, 2020) – Jamie Weston
