British Short Films on Film

A selection of the best British short films ever made. From the canon of essential cinema to experimental and rarely seen, all screen on original 35mm and 16mm prints. Inspired by BFI’s Film on Film festival and featuring directing icons of British cinema from the 1950s to the new millennium.

Lindsay Anderson (If…) was part of the radical Free Cinema movement documenting 1950s working class life, O Dreamland being a portrait of visitors to Margate’s iconic fairground. Artist and activist filmmaker Derek Jarman (Blue, Jubilee) famously worked with The Smiths to showcase songs from their The Queen is Dead album. Aardman Animations charmed the world with Nick Park’s (Wallace & Gromit) Oscar-winning animation Creature Comforts. Award winning short Coffee Coloured Children is by pioneering director Ngozi Onwurah, who’s nineties film Welcome II the Terrordome was the first Black British female directed feature to be commercially released. Veteran experimental British filmmakers Peter Greenaway (The Draughtsman’s Contract, Drowning By Numbers) and John Smith (The Black Tower, Blight) are represented here with early visually playful shorts from the 1970s, Windows and Girl Chewing Gum. There are also early shorts from contemporary directors Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank, American Honey) and Menhaj Huda (Kidulthood, Harry & Meghan) in Dog (starring Freddie Cunliffe) and Jump Boy (starring Preeya Kalidas and Ray Panthaki).

This programme includes drug use, strong racial language and implied animal cruelty.

O Dreamland
Director Lindsay Anderson, UK 1953, 13min

Windows
Director Peter Greenaway, UK 1975, 4min

Girl Chewing Gum
Director John Smith, UK 1976, 12min

Klipperty Klopp
Director Andrew Kötting, UK 1984, 12min

The Queen Is Dead
Director Derek Jarman, UK 1986, 13min

Coffee Coloured Children
Director Ngozi Onwurah, UK 1988, 16min

Creature Comforts
Director Nick Park, UK 1989, 5min

Jump Boy
Director Menhaj Huda, UK 1999, 11min

Dog
Director Andrea Arnold, UK 2001, 10min

Please note that the 35mm print of the short film Dog screening in this programme has French subtitles.