Short film funded projects by region
South West
Choked
Producer: Isabella Bassett
Writer: Travis Alabanza
Director: Travis Alabanza
Genre: Comedy, horror
Format: Live action
Description: Shakona needs a night of self care from the chaotic and violent outside world. Turns out, self care for Shakona can look just as messed up.
Sweet Nothing
Producer: Chuckie McEwan & Sophie Stacey
Writer: Amy Lever
Director: Em Smith
Genre: Drama, thriller
Format: Live action
Description: Spike and Leo’s friendship is teetering on the edge of something more. But their relationship is put to the test when they encounter an unconscious woman on the street, followed by a suspicious man claiming to be her boyfriend.
Fishguts
Producer: Lucinda Gillian Baird
Writer: Robyn Egan
Director: Robyn Egan
Genre: Drama, horror
Format: Live action
Description: Wren is forced to take a job working nights at the local fish factory. While battling insomnia and fish guts, a co-worker gets a little too close for comfort and things take a sinister turn.
Ramble
Producer: Luke Glen
Writer: Alice Panerai
Director: Alice Panerai
Genre: Comedy, drama
Format: Live action
Description: A drama about an emotionally avoidant ex-raver who is sent on a country ramble by his probation officer as a way to deal with the death of his friend.
South East
Mamá
Producer: Daniel Matthews & Ellie Clapperton
Writer: Santiago Ponce de Leon
Director: Santiago Ponce de Leon
Genre: Thriller
Format: Live action
Description: Viewed through the lens of a car’s backup camera, a devoted Christian mother is forced into completing a dangerous drug run, putting her morals to the side in order to save her imprisoned sons life.
The Girl Next Door
Producer: Ceci Mazzarella
Writer: AJ Yi
Director: Emily Ling Williams
Genre: Comedy
Format: Live action
Description: Yuze (80s) lives a quiet life of routine, the only Chinese man in the predominantly white English suburb he calls home, when colourful disruptive new neighbour Susu (70s) moves in next door and challenges everything Yuze thought he wanted from life.
Mother Me
Producer: Oluwaloyemi Adegbulu (Yemi)
Writer: Amanda Ajomale
Director: Amit Kaur
Genre: Horror
Format: Live action
Description: A woman must return to her childhood home to restore its broken pieces. In doing so, she is confronted with the ghosts of her past self, who take her on a cathartic journey into the future.
The Keeper
Producer: Marie Osman
Writer: Joseph Osayande
Director: Joseph Osayande
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: After sustaining a life-changing injury, Fode’s dreams of becoming a pro footballer are crushed. While lost and frustrated with his new mundane lifestyle, he is shown mysterious signs that point to his ancestral calling.
The Palomino
Producer: Darren Sinnot
Writer: Nicholas Finegan
Director: Nicholas Finegan
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: When Gus goes on his first gay group holiday to a beach town from his childhood, old insecurities soon swim to the surface — and the memories he buried somewhere in the sand become too loud to ignore.
North
Sharks Never Sleep
Producer: Natasha Willams, Niamh Barley
Writer: Kieran Stringfellow
Director: Kieran Stringfellow
Genre: Drama, thriller
Format: Live action
Description: While doing work experience at her aunt’s nail salon, 16-year-old Saskia bonds with young apprentice, Elena. But her relationship with her auntie and her new friend is put to the test, when she stumbles across something she wasn’t supposed to see.
Everything’s Fine
Producer: Thea Burrows
Writer: Matt Green
Director: Matt Green
Genre: Comedy
Format: Live action
Description: When Richard is caught making VR love to an anthropomorphic cat by his soon-to-be wife, he faces the desperate challenge of worming his way back into the good books. No small feat when you throw in a surprise visit from the overbearing in-laws.
Hen House
Producer: Rhiannon Jones
Writer: Adam James
Director: Yvonne Lawlor
Genre: Comedy
Format: Live action
Description: Raging homosexual Cam attends his best friend Vic’s hen weekend, harboring anxieties about what her impending nuptials mean for their friendship. Expecting gendered stereotypes and conservative values from Vic’s straight gal-pals, what Cam finds is even more horrifying.
Killing Things
Producers: Lindsay Fraser & Andy Malone
Writer: Lee Armstrong
Director: Lee Armstrong
Genre: Comedy
Format: Live action
Description: Fiona, 11, lives with her aunty. Nothing strange there, except her aunty’s an assassin, who has raised Fiona to see life as kill-or-be-killed. When Fiona befriends a pacifist, she teaches him to stand up to bullies – a lesson quickly tested when her aunt’s latest target arrives wanting revenge.
Lykke Wake
Producer: Emilia Clark
Writer: Henry (Harry) Hayton Iles
Director: Henry (Harry) Hayton Iles
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: Following the loss of her husband, a young mother and her learning-disabled son struggle to subsist on a remote 19th-century farmstead of the North Yorkshire Moors.
24 Hours to Guarantor
Producer: James Craggs
Writer: Stefanie Reynolds
Director: Josie Connor
Genre: Comedy
Format: Live action
Description: Leonie has twenty-four hours to find a homeowner guarantor, in a frantic quest to escape her awful house share and have “her own bathroom to shit in”. She recruits her stoned girlfriend, Priya, for support, because unfortunately the only homeowner she knows is her estranged, conservative brother, Jerell.
This Flag
Producer: Chim’Di Ugada
Writer: Kemi-Bo Jacobs
Director: Kemi-Bo Jacobs
Genre: Thriller (drama)
Format: Live action
Description: Mary can’t sleep. She’s been tormented day and night by visions of a mythical creature, tied to a neighbour’s St George’s flag. Increasingly doubting her own sanity, Mary decides to speak out against the racism that seems invisible to her white family in northern England.
In Her Image
Producer: Tolu Olurebi
Writer: Ola Busari
Director: Ola Busari
Genre: Drama (experimental)
Format: Live Action
Description: Haunted by a poster of a Black woman with a gun, once ignited by a white hand, a young man’s subconscious drives him to unknowingly re-create that charged image as a photographer, perpetuating a cycle of racial indoctrination.
On the Edge
Producer: Adam Bouabda
Writer: Sarah Tarbit
Director: Emma Roxburgh
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: A primary school teacher reaches breaking point after it’s “business as usual” following the death of a close colleague whose car ploughed into a tree after a brutal “mock” OFSTED inspection. The combination of grief, the growing difficulty of managing young lives, and the ridiculousness of the new academic trust policies, forces her to confront whether she can continue working in a system that cares too little when she cares so much.
Take Two
Producer: Damian Palli
Writer: Gomolemo Nyakale
Director: Gomolemo Nyakale
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: At the crossroads of postgraduate adulthood, a northern lass jumps at the chance to compete on the nation’s hottest reality show, “Lords & Ladies”. Only to discover the game is rigged—and the role she’s already been cast in is someone she refuses to be. What is a girl to do?
Midlands
Safeguarding
Producer: Katie-Jo McKeon
Writer: Jack Norris
Director: Jack Norris
Genre: Drama, thriller
Format: Live action
Description: On her first week at work, an anxious nursery practitioner is left alone with a vulnerable child who hasn’t been picked up – until a man claiming to be the boy’s father arrives, demanding to take him home without authorisation.
Barbs
Producer: Joanne Michael
Writer: Nathan D’Arcy Roberts
Director: Soph Webberly
Genre: Comedy, drama, science fiction
Format: Live action
Description: Zee has inherited her mother’s barbershop, including all that comes with it; boisterous customers, selfish landlords, and a new mysterious hole in the wall which won’t stop growing.
Ellipsis
Producers: Toby Cameron & Jessica Gardner
Writer: Owain Paciuszko
Director: Owain Paciuszko
Genre: Drama, horror
Format: Live action
Description: Refusing to accept the loss of her best friend, Carly’s grip on reality begins to shake as a message from the beyond makes her question whether there’s life after death.
London
Tiramisù
Producer: Alessandra Gonnella
Writer: Stella Corradi
Director: Daphne Di Cinto
Genre: Comedy
Format: Live action
Description: Aurora, an Afro-Italian university student in London, meets Fante, an East London born wannabe rapper of Italian background: while challenging each other’s identities, they will also help each other grow.
Glory
Producer: Chloe Huybens
Writer: Lily Lyor Askenazi
Director: Olivia Lifungula
Genre: Romance
Format: Live action
Description: When a late bloomer is drawn to her carefree younger colleague, their disappointing first kiss shatters her fantasies, forcing her to confront the messy realities of human connection.
Oyakodon
Producer: Lily Usher & Tolu Stedford
Writer: Mika Ogai
Director: Georgie Yukiko Donovan
Genre: Horror
Format: Live action
Description: Following the sudden death of her English mother, a grieving and haunted Yuri receives an unexpected visit from her enigmatic and estranged Japanese grandmother. As cultural rituals collide with personal guilt, she is forced to confront a painful memory—or risk being haunted by her mother’s restless soul forever.
The Oath
Producer: Charlotte Maxwell
Writer: Sandy Matta
Director: Sandy Matta
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: After months of helplessly watching the relentless war in Gaza, Yousef, a retired Palestinian doctor, finds out he’s been approved to volunteer there as a medic. Now he’s faced with telling his family this news.
Uncle
Producer: Michael van der Put
Writer: Tom Blackman
Director: Tom Blackman
Genre: Drama
Format: Live action
Description: Mother and son, Louise and Max travel far outside of London to visit their recently displaced Uncle T. As the past of Uncle T blends into their journey, Louise is haunted by concerns for Max’s future. But if Max really is like his Uncle T, is that so bad?
In 2025 BFI NETWORK shortlisted 33 short films projects for funding.
These short film projects have been approved for funding from the 2025 open call, at the time this page was last updated.
Further projects from the 2025 open call will be added to this list once their final funding awards are confirmed.