Beginning Friday, 25 indie venues across London will host the London Short Film Festival. Now in its tenth year, the LSFF has grown from its initial four-day run to a more expansive ten-day event.
The short films on offer are grouped thematically across the festival’s run under headings such as Sisters & Daughters, Teenage Girls Go Crazy and Lo-Budget Mayhem. However, for those prepared to dig a little deeper, there’s more to the festival than meets the eye. For example, the London premiere of experimental filmmakers Al + Al’s acclaimed The Creator. A surreal film about thinking machines from the future that have come back in time to discover their creator, computer scientist Alan Turing, The Guardian has called it a "mesmeric hallucinatory meditation", and the event will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers themselves.
There will also be a special focus on Collabor8te, the short film-making scheme set up by Rankin Films in 2011, which champions new talent from the UK and Ireland. Similarly focused on emerging talent, Peter Strickland – whose fabulous homage to giallo films, Berberian Sound Studio, was released last year – will be presenting a masterclass lab in association with BAFTA.
Among the LSFF’s other diverse attractions are a retrospective of founding member of The Jesus and Mary Chain Douglas Hart’s music videos with a DJ set afterwards, former winner of the Best Short Film Award Ruth Paxton’s new film installations, and an exploration of Sylvia Plath’s enduring legacy that compares Sandra Lahire’s short film, Lady Lazarus, and the Mad Men episode of the same name. A roster of short films ranging from the experimental to the literary to the commercial, it's the perfect antidote to the onset of Oscar season.
The London Short Film Festival runs from 4-13 January, with events priced at £10, or £7 for members of the ICA. Tickets can be booked on the LSFF website.
