When George Miller’s jury took to the stage at the awards ceremony of this years Cannes Film Festival, Toni Erdmann was the name on everyone’s lips. Amongst the heady scrum of Cannes royalty, – Jarmusch, Arnold, the Dardennes Brothers, sat the anomaly of Toni Erdmann, a 162 minute German comedy that had gained the highest Screen International jury score in recent memory (3.7/4), and better still it was directed by a women who had yet to make a significant mark…

After the lacklustre southern gothic excursion of Stoker, Chan-wook Park has returned to his native South Korea with an adaptation of Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith. Retitled as The Handmaiden and transferring its Dickensian setting to 1930s Japanese-occupied Korea, The Handmaiden concerns the double-crossing machinations of three corrupt individuals; the fraudulent grifter Count Fujiwara, Lady Hideko a Korean lady who lives under the perverse tutorage of her sinister uncle and the titular handmaiden Sook-Hee a pickpocket from a family of rogues and…

Each year, Encounters features several features amongst its programme of short films. These films, from alumni of the festival or favoured filmmakers demonstrate successful transitions from short to feature filmmaking, as well as the appeal of moving back and forth between varying lengths. We spoke to the filmmakers who have features at Encounters, about the differences between short and feature filmmaking, their experiences with the industry and their thoughts on Encounters.

The BFI’s London Film Festival have unleashed their programme for this year’s edition, and as well as offering a bumper programme of regular features, shorts, experimental works and newly restored archive treasures, they’re building a temporary 800 seat theatre to home more film fans in the capital. The 2016 edition takes a special focus on diversity, directing the annual Network @ LFF for emerging filmmakers specifically towards minority entrants, opening with Amma Asante’s A United Kingdom, and closes with the commencement of the…

Last week, we spoke with three Shooting People members who have films included in Encounters Short & Animation Festival later this month. Here, we hear from two more – the talented, comedy focused filmmaker Kate Herron and Finland-born, Edinburgh-based new artist filmmaker Katri Vanhatalo.

Arriving at the end of September is Bristol’s popular Encounters Festival, one of the UK’s premiere stages for short film and animation. To get you in the spirit for all things short film, we’ve spoken with five Shooting People members who have films included in the competition, about the paths they took into filmmaking, the films they’ve made, and what they’re working on next. Here’s the first three.

The UK’s leading short film and animation festival Encounters returns to the Watershed Bristol in late September for it’s 22nd edition, serving as a platform for both emerging and established animators and filmmakers who’ve produced work in the short form.

From Open City Docs, two films that engage with enormous subjects in ambitious fashion. A six hour home video account of Iraq in wartime, and a dramatic, cryptic essay on the nature of border control in modern Europe.

On the day of its commencement, some notes on some of the films playing this year’s Open City Doc Fest, a festival that whilst young and small in scale compared to some of the other documentary festivals, is proving increasing impressive and ambitious. Offering challenging and intelligent programming in both the film and industry sections, and an approach that favours creative, smart documentary filmmaking over the more audience-friendly material you find leading elsewhere, Open City have been consistent from the…

In this second dispatch from Doc/Fest, two films adapted from texts of some kind, and an exploration of the various challenges and opportunities that arise from this process. In a way, all filmmaking is about finding the right cinematic language to externalise something that exists only in the head of the filmmaker, but in these films that process of translation is unusually present.