The BFI Future Film Festival 2025, the festival for young, emerging filmmakers, returns from February 20 – March 6, 2025 with a hybrid format, and the traditional live and in-person screenings and events at BFI Southbank from February 20 – 23, 2025.
The festival kicks off with UK director Joshua Trigg’s debut feature Satu – Year of the Rabbit, a coming-of-age tale about a boy’s quest to find his long-lost mother, set against the breathtaking landscape of Laos.
The film program is separated into nine strands – The City, Coming of Age, Digital, Family, Identities, Mortality, Our Planet, Relationships, and Surreal – a collection of fifty-four shorts by talented filmmakers from across the globe.
The BFI also announced the award nominations for the films that have been selected to screen as part of the Festival. Every film in this year’s festival was eligible for the BFI Future Film Festival Awards 2025. Three of the ten awards, Best Film, Best Director and Best New Talent (which looks for the filmmaker who shows the most promise), will be judged by the BFI’s Festival Jury, consisting of filmmakers Baff Akoto (producer of Queen of Glory), Daisy-May Hudson (director of Holloway), Eloïse King (director of The Shadow Scholars) and Pinny Grylls (director of Grand Theft Hamlet).
BFI Future Film Festival 2025 Nominees
Best New Talent
BIG DEAL (Isabella Thompson, UK 2024)
HEAVY (Eve Grant, UK 2024)
REQUIEM (Holly Sharman, UK 2024)
THE HIGHLANDS (Oskar Chu, UK 2024)
Best Director
CHECK PLEASE (Shane Chung, USA 2024)
LAST NIGHT IN IRL (Ola Adediji, UK 2024)
MORPHES (Konstantinos Doxiadis, Greece 2024)
WE’RE NOT IN ESSEX ANYMORE (Grac Talbot, UK 2024)
Best Film
A NATURAL SADDEST (Sobae Kim, Korea 2024)
EVERYTHING LOOKS SIMPLE FROM A DISTANCE (Conor Toner, Ireland 2024)
RED LACE (Andrea Adame and Paula Trejo Espada, Spain 2024)
WE’RE NOT IN ESSEX ANYMORE (Grac Talbot, UK 2024)
Best Animation
ESC (Pamela Simoes Gomez and Olivia Timms, UK 2024)
RED THUMB (Kolya Kishinsky and Geneva Huffman, USA 2024)
SINGULARITY (Conor Mullin, UK 2024)
SPEAK NO EVIL (Chen Ma, UK 2023)
UNRECOGNIZED CHARACTER DETECTED (Song Ye, China 2024)
Best Documentary
HOW THE WORLD IS GOING TO END (Vladislav Motorichev, UK 2024)
IF THIS WERE PURGATORY (Honey Birch, UK 2024)
PARTITION (Matthew Tan, UAE 2024)
THEIR ACCOUNTS (Hannah Hunter, UK 2024)
YOUR VOICE ONLY (Rana Wael Matar, Saudi Arabia 2023)
Best Experimental
AS PECKHAM AS (Tom Blackman, UK 2024)
I’M YOUR BABY (Fionnuala McCormack, Ireland 2023)
MORPHES (Konstantinos Doxiadis, Greece 2024)
REBIRTH (Joel Claudio, UK 2024)
THE HIGHLANDS (Oskar Chu, UK 2024)
Best International
A NATURAL SADDEST (Sobae Kim, Korea 2024)
ALMOST INTANGIBLE (Taraneh Esmailian, Iran 2024)
CHECK PLEASE (Shane Chung, USA 2024)
CHUCKS (Anum Ehtesham and Rafay Rockingson, Pakistan 2024)
IVAN’S DEATH (Daniel Sherwood, USA 2024)
LAST NIGHT (Oliver Zel, USA 2024)
MORPHES (Konstantinos Doxiadis, Greece 2024)
MY EYES! (Magnus Hippe Brun, Denmark 2023)
PERIOD PARTY (Georgia Brogan, Australia 2024)
RED LACE (Andrea Adame and Paula Trejo Espada, Spain 2024)
THE FIFTH STEP (Alexandru Oita, Romania 2023)
YOUR VOICE ONLY (Rana Wael Matar, Saudi Arabia 2023)
Best Micro Short
ENDLESSLY HUNGRY (Prajvi Mandhani, UK 2024)
OVER THERE (Shuqi Li, UK 2024)
THE DOGS (George Moore Chadwick, UK 2024)
THE GOLDEN POSTBOX (Julia Mervis, UK 2024)
THE JOURNEY HOME (Noah Lei Underwood, UK 2023)
Best Writer
ALMOST INTANGIBLE (Taraneh Esmailian, Iran 2024)
EVERYTHING LOOKS SIMPLE FROM A DISTANCE (Conor Toner, Ireland 2024)
HEAVY (Eve Grant, UK 2024)
HOT YOUNG GEEK SEEKS BLOOD-SUCKING FREAK (Heath Virgoe, UK 2024)
TFH! (Fraser Scott, UK 2024)
Full Film Lineup for BFI Future Film Festival 2025
The City
AS PECKHAM AS (Tom Blackman, UK 2024)
An ode to Peckham imbued with the neighborhood’s essence, accompanied by a poem written and performed by Tyreece Asamoah.
IF THIS WERE PURGATORY (Honey Birch, UK 2024)
From gossip to identity, politics, and romance; follow a group of friends to the club and eavesdrop on the numerous voices in a queer club queue.
NEXT STOP IS… (Stephen Han, USA 2022)
A filmic letter to the New York subway – the lifeline of the city, which offers space for community and creativity while simultaneously acting as a site for surveillance, distortion, and hurt.
PARTITION (Matthew Tan, UAE 2024)
Migrant workers in the UAE, 90% of the country’s population, occupy small apartments with subdivided rooms as we see what their lives are like.
REBIRTH (Joel Claudio, UK 2024)
A once vibrant neighborhood is sent into chaos by a tragedy in the community. Two brothers are caught up in the protest before an ethereal figure arrives embodying the grief of the people.
THE GOLDEN POSTBOX (Julia Mervis, UK 2024)
Members of the public ruminate on the impact of Sheffield’s golden postbox on the local community, a souvenir from the fever dream that was the year 2012.
WE’RE NOT IN ESSEX ANYMORE (Grac Talbot, UK 2024)
A group of friends travel from the London suburbs into the city in this mixed-media homage to The Wizard of Oz, explores themes of female friendship and escapism along the way.
Coming of Age
A FEW MORE MINUTES, PLEASE (Dylan Scott, UK 2024)
A quiet nineteen-year-old struggles to order at a restaurant, forcing him to grapple with the building pressure to choose a purpose in life even as he can’t choose from a menu.
BIG DEAL (Isabella Thompson, UK 2024)
On a quest to smoke weed before leaving for university, two best friends question their relationship, their anxieties about growing up. . . and how to properly roll a joint.
HEAVY (Eve Grant, UK 2024)
A trip to the local supermarket to buy sanitary products forces an awkward and uncomfortable conversation between a teenage girl and her clueless father.
HOT YOUNG GEEK SEEKS BLOOD-SUCKING FREAK (Heath Virgoe, UK 2024)
Max finds himself the online target of an angry vampire. Enlisting his roommate Ricky for help, the pair’s attempts at home defense are quickly complicated by the arrival of a forgotten pizza delivery.
MY EYES! (Magnus Hippe Brun, Denmark 2023)
Peer pressure and personal limits are put to the test when two game ‘witches’ set a group of new students an orientation week task deep in the woods.
RED LACE (Andrea Adame and Paula Trejo Espada, Spain 2024)
A young man enters a sinister and mysterious bakery where he must complete a rite of initiation in order to join the strange community of cake lovers who reside there.
WAITING FOR MARCUS (Sára Ní Eithir, UK 2024)
Tensions rise as two teenage girls get ready for a costume party while pushing each others’ buttons. Soon, they must face the disappointing nature of their friendship as well as their night out.
Digital
ENDLESSLY HUNGRY (Prajvi Mandhani, UK 2024)
Entering a digital interface, the viewer follows the cursor as it travels across screens and windows, navigating blurred boundaries between political absurdity and reality.
ESC (Pamela Simoes Gomez and Olivia Timms, UK 2024)
An office rabbit’s monotonous and repetitive work life is forever changed by an encounter with a wild rabbit, prompting visions that send him further into a state of stress and turmoil.
LAST NIGHT IN IRL (Ola Adediji, UK 2024)
High-tech contact lenses help Annu hide her face behind a filter, until a beautiful unadulterated stranger sparks her interest at a party.
OVER THERE (Shuqi Li, UK 2024)
A jobless woman sells her body to enter the digital world and seemingly thrive, but soon she discovers something unsettling about her new existence.
SINGULARITY (Conor Mullin, UK 2024)
After crash landing on a desolate planet with nothing but a satellite phone, an astronaut is left on hold as he waits for the rescue.
Family
CHUCKS (Anum Ehtesham and Rafay Rockingson, Pakistan 2024)
A mother’s wish to fulfill her son’s dream of owning a pair of Chuck Taylors reveals the fragile threads of her double life. Would things ever be the same between the two of them?
DON’T FALL FROM GRACE (Carley Byers, USA 2024)
When Grace’s body is taken over by a mysterious entity that means her harm, her mother is desperate to break her free from the trance.
EVERY OTHER WEEKEND (James Naughton, Ireland 2024)
Desperate to escape from a routine of biweekly visits, a recently divorced father drags his two children camping to the west of Ireland.
PERIOD PARTY (Georgia Brogan, Australia 2024)
Bee puts on a party to celebrate the return of her period after a battle with anorexia. While the vagina cake melts, she comes to terms with the messiness of family and womanhood.
RALPH (Archie Rowell, UK 2023)
After the sudden loss of his mother, Ralph sits to look through the memories left behind of their cherished time together and found one final message.
YOUR VOICE ONLY (Rana Wael Matar, Saudi Arabia 2023)
A Sudanese man working in an isolated horse stable in Dahban, Saudi Arabia, tries to contact his family after not being able to reach them in three months.
Identities
BY HEART (Jeffrey Lo, Taiwan 2024)
After being brought to Taiwan following her parents’ separation, Catherine attempts to hold on to her American identity by resisting the Confucian text she must memorize at school.
CHECK PLEASE (Shane Chung, USA 2024)
Dinner for two turns deadly when a Korean and a Korean-American fight over who gets to pay the check — and who gets to keep their honor.
EVERYTHING LOOKS SIMPLE FROM A DISTANCE (Conor Toner, Ireland 2024)
With tensions mounting in 1969 Northern Ireland, Noah looks for a higher purpose and decides that a trip to the moon may be the best route to peace.
I’M YOUR BABY (Fionnuala McCormack, Ireland 2023)
Inspired by the real-life experiences of Irish women, this film showcases the reality of female subjection and sexualization told through evocative text messages and intimate visuals.
ROAD TO 75 (Niya Taylor, UK 2024)
Showcasing the beauty and richness of Luton’s Caribbean culture, the town goes on a crucial journey towards commemorating the 75th anniversary of Windrush.
THE JOURNEY HOME (Noah Lei Underwood, UK 2023)
A creature considers its current bindings and finds them wanting in this ethereal meditation on the the surreal quality of queer and intersectional realities.
THEIR ACCOUNTS (Hannah Kate Cameron Hunter, UK 2024)
Young people from Ardnamurchan share their thoughts on their home and their culture’s past, present, and future through interviews inspired by traditional oral storytelling.
Mortality
IVAN’S DEATH (Daniel Sherwood, USA 2024)
A judge faces his death and finds himself judging his own life’s actions in this surreal adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich.
MORPHES (Konstantinos Doxiadis, Greece 2024)
A man and a boy find themselves in a mysterious forest at night. Together, they must find their way towards the light.
THE DOGS (George Moore Chadwick, UK 2024)
After the collapse of human civilization, an old dog faces up to his mortality and the prospect of a new world.
THE FIFTH STEP (Alexandru Oita, Romania 2023)
A man survives incarceration by holding on to the memories of his imprisoned wife. Hoping to see her again upon his release, he soon realizes that all he has left is the memory of their dance steps.
TYPE OF RAIN (Saskia Steinberg, UK 2025)
Following the untimely death of her closest friend, a young woman finally finds some comfort in the form of a new ally: cold water.
Our Planet
CLAWS (Nim Longley, UK 2024)
A playful reimagining of the classic cat-and-bird chase told through scans of paper cuts and collage brought to life through vivid animation.
HOW THE WORLD IS GOING TO END (Vladislav Motorichev, UK 2024)
Members of the UK public speculate about the world’s end, and whether there is anything we can do to stop it.
RED THUMB (Kolya Kishinsky and Geneva Huffman, USA 2024)
Intrigue turns to obsession in this stop-motion animation when a gardener discovers a pulsating red plant in his yard. As it physically grows so does their connection, leading to a shocking climax.
REQUIEM (Holly Sharman, UK 2024)
A pregnant woman spirals into emotional disarray when faced with the prospect of birthing her child into a world of environmental ruin.
THE HIGHLANDS (Oskar Chu, UK 2024)
A poetic journey through the Scottish Highlands, capturing the raw beauty of an untamed land and the quiet tension of its transformation.
THE SILENCE AFTER THE STORM (Alina Rizwan, Pakistan 2024)
Floods have a devastating effect on education in Sindh, Pakistan, as told through the eyes of a young Kubargoth dreamer who rewrites his rain-soaked dreams.
Relationships
A NATURAL SADDEST (Sobae Kim, Korea 2024)
Bomb and Cherry’s unorthodox business venture of selling pearls is put at risk when the pair fall deeper in love, leading to pain and conflict.
ALMOST INTANGIBLE (Taraneh Esmailian, Iran 2024)
When they are asked to improvise during an audition, a husband and wife discover some uncomfortable truths about their relationship in the process.
BLUEPRINT (Lada Kopytova, UK 2024)
Cass and Ezra look back on their failed relationship, brought on by Cass’ tendency to write about her life and Ezra’s unwillingness to exist as a character in her stories.
LAST NIGHT (Oliver Zel, USA 2024)
In the relentless hustle of the New York dating scene, two eligible bachelors break free of the apps and take a chance on each other as a serial ‘ghost’ meets his match.
MISS ODD (Robyn Wisker-Stilling, UK 2024)
After her neighbor calls her “Miss Odd”, silent DJ Jolene’s vibrant world fades from pink to grey on her way to date. . . But she has learned the world’s melody, and now it’s time to embrace her own.
TFH! (Fraser Scott, UK 2024)
After waking up to discover they’re the last two humans left in Paisley following a mass alien abduction, friends Darren and Lu grow closer as they attempt to stay one step ahead of the threat.
Surreal
A HOT SUMMER NIGHT (Hassan Hekmat Ravesh, Iran 2024)
On a scorching summer day, a rusty fan is betrayed by its owner and replaced with a newer model. Sparking jealousy and a need for justice, the fan seeks revenge for this unforgivable crime.
IMAGINE THE AUDIENCE NAKED (Reuben Underwood, UK 2024)
Funk band Grog Machine walks out into the spotlight. They may have only just switched on their amps and kicked on their guitar pedals, but something is wrong. . .
SPEAK NO EVIL (Chen Ma, UK 2023)
In a world of silence, where countless mouths are thrown into a bottomless black hole each day, one person looks to break free of this curse of censorship and find their voice.
UNRECOGNIZED CHARACTER DETECTED (Song Ye, China 2024)
Two alien organisms engage in a playful conflict across diverse territories, but all may not be as it seems.
ZIZZ (Manyu Zhao, UK 2024)
As a girl attempts to fall asleep, the noise from the city, the uncomfortable bed and her overactive brain conspires to stop her from getting into dreams.