Eye For Film >> Festivals >> EIFF >> 2021 >> Shorts
View other Edinburgh International Film Festival Films by strand: Documentaries, Features, Fest In The City, Film Fest On The Forth, Gala Screenings, Restored Classics
Born In Damascus and Stop Nineteen
Aberración Cromática
(Country: Colombia, France; Year: 2020; Director: Andrés Baron)
Black Box: Interruptions
Collage film observing a woman making a screen print of herself.
Affairs Of The Art
(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Joanna Quinn; Writer: Les Mills; Stars: Menna Trussler, Brendan Charleson, Joanna Quinn, Mali Ann Rees)
A family is obsessed with everything from drawing to taxidermy.
Family Values
Allowed
(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Zillah Bowes)
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
An animated lockdown walk through Cardiff during the first Covid-19 wave, re-examining our relationship with urban plant life in the context of biodiversity loss and climate crisis.
An Taigh Solais
(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Alina Brust)
EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition
An elderly shepherd and her sheep get trapped in a mysterious lighthouse and they must find a way out before time runs out.
Are You Still Watching?
(Country: Australia; Year: 2021; Director: Alex Cardy, Kitty Chrystal, Tali Polichtuk)
Imaginings
In the midst of Melbourne’s Covid-19 lockdown, Jamie finds reprieve from the monotony of isolation through their imagination, sensuality and some help from iconic onscreen queer characters.
The Bayview and Affairs Of The Art
Autofiction (Autoficcion)
(Country: Spain, United States, New Zealand; Year: 2020; Director: Laida Lertxundi; Writer: Laida Lertxundi)
Black Box: Interconnections
Borrowing its name from the title of a literary genre, the film recognises the indeterminacy of both fiction and of the being.
BA
(Country: Russia; Year: 2020; Director: Svetlana Flippova)
Family Values
Sasha grew up in a city in Soviet Kazakhstan and takes refuge in the imaginary world of books and music.
The Bayview
(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Daniel Cook)
A glimpse into the world of a family who have turned the previously derelict hotel into a place of respite for international fishermen when they come to land.
Bridging The Gap: Mobile
Born In Damascus
(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Laura Wadha)
After ten years apart, a Scottish filmmaker tries to reconnect with her closest cousin after their paths were separated by war.
Bridging The Gap: Mobile
Bound
(Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Joe Carter)
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
Drama sees two young people navigating the ultimate walk of shame.
The Shift and Moving Out Through Stars
C (Alleswasichberühre)
(Country: Switzerland; Year: 2020; Director: Marion Täschler)
Imaginings
In a constant search for closeness, C experiences emotions in all their highs and lows.
Candy Can
(Country: Romania; Year: 2020; Director: Anton Octavian)
Imaginings
The story of a child saved by imagination from a rotten, abusive reality.
The Dog With Wings (7)
(Year: 2020; Director: Sanjana Chandrasekhar)
Family Values
A family of 4 attempt to uncover sensitive issues about each other, through solving a cryptic crossword puzzle.
Dreamscape
(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Emer Gallagher)
EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition
Sophie finds herself in a dazzling sea of images, set adrift in her subconscious. Where is she going?
Evening Plans
(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Nathaniel Brimmer-Beller)
EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition
The small story of a big night.
Have A Nice Dog and Autofiction
Fart Car
(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Fraser Scott; Writer: Fraser Scott; Stars: Michael Ahomka-Lindsay)
EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition
An exploration of grief, as a young man tells us the story of the eventful night of his first kiss with a boy.
The Fourfold
(Country: Canada; Year: 2020; Director: Alisi Telengut; Writer: Alisi Telengut)
Family Values
Based on the ancient animistic beliefs and shamanic rituals in Mongolia and Siberia, an exploration of the indigenous worldview and wisdom.
Further Radical
(Country: France; Year: 2020; Director: Stefano Canapa)
Black Box: Interruptions
Experimental film using slices of black radish on unexposed film.
Ghosts
(Country: South Korea; Year: 2020; Director: Park Jee-youn)
Imaginings
In the boredom of life, they became ghosts. The crows are after them.
The Grove
(Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Craig Brownie, Nathaniel Duff)
EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition
Zoe was found murdered four months ago. The case ran cold. Suspicions point to the original detective, now himself deceased. But could the real killer be hiding in plain sight?
Further Radical and Silvering
The Hangman At Home
(Country: France, Denmark, Canada; Year: 2021; Director: Michelle Kranot Uri Kranot)
Family Values
What does an executioner think about when he comes home after a hard day's work?
Have A Nice Dog
(Country: Germany, Syria; Year: 2020; Director: Jalal Maghout; Writer: Jalal Maghout; Stars: Hoda El-Sharkawy, Lucas Englander, Karsten Matern, Hoda El-Sharkawy, Lucas Englander, Karsten Matern)
Imaginings
Trapped in Damascus, surrounded by war, a lonely man becomes increasingly lost in his fantasies of fleeing and the inner dialogues with his dog.
How A Sprig Of Fir Would Replace A Feather
(Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Anna Kipervaser)
Black Box: Interruptions
Employing devices of close examination and tactile visual engagement to natural history specimens, brings both illumination and regenerative energy to these exquisite artefacts.
Jambo Cinema
(Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Dawinder Bansal; Writer: Dawinder Bansal)
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
A short film about a video rental shop in 1980s Wolverhampton, bringing a lost world back to life.
Keith Water
(Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Izzy Gibbs)
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
Stop-motion story about a small river.
C and Lost Child Reel
Kkum
(Country: US, South Korean; Year: 2020; Director: Kangmin Kim; Writer: Kangmin Kim; Stars: Kangmin Kim, Joung-Soon Park, Kangmin Kim, Joung-Soon Park)
Family Values
Animated short.
Kopierwerk
(Year: 2019; Director: Stefanie Weberhofer)
Black Box: Interruptions
The cinema is a machine. Kopierwerk testifies to that.
The Last Days
(Year: 2020; Director: Dipo Baruwa-Etti)
Visions
In a near-future world where you can discover your Death Day, an apolitical woman learns that she and many black people have been given incorrect dates and seeks justice before her time runs out - that same day.
Le Rêve
(Country: Germany; Year: 2020; Director: Peter Conrad Beyer)
Black Box: Interconnections
The raven dreams of nature, he dreams of a world of plants and insects. He travels, flies into nature. He is nature itself. Nature itself dreams into trance.
Lost Child Reel
(Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Rhys Morgan)
Black Box: Interruptions
A process of filmic translation, exploring the layers of oral tradition bound into vernacular American folk music forms, set in motion through an ingenious overlapping of analogue and digital processes.
Are You Still Watching? and Prosopagnosia
Lussevaka
(Country: UK, Sweden; Year: 2020; Director: Johanna Sutherland)
EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition
At a bustling Lucia dinner party, a young girl, ignored and patronised by the adult conversation around her, forms an unspoken bond with an equally excluded elderly lady across the table. Stirring supernatural forces, they find their own means of escaping the gathering.
A Month Of Single Frames
(Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Lynne Sachs; Writer: Lynne Sachs)
Black Box: Interconnections
A film made from footage shot by Barbara Hammer during a one-month artist residency, which she gave to Sachs and invited her to make a film with.
Moving Out Through Stars
(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Holly Summerson)
EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition
An animated journey through queerness, joy and transformation, inspired by the poetry and scrapbooks of Edwin Morgan - Scotland’s first National Poet.
My Favorite Software Is Being Here
(Country: US; Year: 2021; Director: Alison Nguyen)
Visions
Animation centred on a woman's isolated existence.
Noonwraith Blues
(Country: UK, US; Year: 2020; Director: Kamila Kuc)
Black Box: Interruptions
Presence, memory and ancient folkloric sensibilities latent within the fabric of the landscape are evoked through gesture, ritual and physical interaction with the filmstrip.
Step Tnto The River and Redbird And Other Birds
Octavia's Visions
(Country: Germany; Year: 2021; Director: Zara Zandieh)
Visions
Animation inspired by the Parables of the African-American futurist author Octavia E Butler.
Of This Beguiling Membrane
(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Charlotte Pryce)
Black Box: Interconnections
The story unfolds on the Eve of Midsummer: on the day when the threshold between worlds is porous, and an idle gesture can tempt fate.
One For The Road
(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Eileen Tracey)
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
Ceri has to pack up her whole deeply rooted life in the seaside town of Penporth to meet the evacuation date set by the government, as the coastal defences crumble under ever-rising sea levels.
Only Yesterday
(Country: New Zealand; Year: 2020; Director: Sione Monū)
Visions
An imagined alternate world where the island and community of Tonga was unaffected by colonialism, shown through the eyes of two leiti’s living in Aotearoa.
Opal
(Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Kirsty McLean)
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
A teenage boxer tries to fill her idolised and abusive father's space in the family after his sudden passing.
Rough and Noonwraith Blues
Precious Hair & Beauty
(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: John Ogunmuyiwa; Writer: John Ogunmuyiwa; Stars: Michael Akinsulire, Adjani Salmon, Mamad Heidari, Adé Dee Haastrup, Tomi Ogunjobi, Jessica Bay, Kemi Lofinmakin, Olu Adaeze, Kafayat Adegoke, Deenie Davies, Xanthi Ncube, Michael Akinsulire, Adjani Salmon, Mamad Heidari, Adé Dee Haastrup)
Visions
An ode to the mundanity of and the community found on the high street, told through the window of an African hair salon.
Prosopagnosia
(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Steven Fraser)
Bridging The Gap: Mobile
Exploration of face-blindness.
Push This Button If You Begin To Panic
(Country: UK, Switzerland; Year: 2020; Director: Gabriel Böhmer; Writer: Gabriel Böhmer)
Imaginings
Bartholomew Whisper went to the doctor today. There he met administrators keen on experimental surgery, and lonely MRI machines. At least the growing hole in his head was becoming quite beautiful.
Redbird And Other Birds
(Country: Canada; Year: 2019; Director: Julieta María)
Black Box: Interconnections
Essay film set around a small suburban aiport.
Rough
(Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Adam Patterson, Declan Lawn)
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
Post-conflict paramilitaries, in Northern Ireland, enforce brutal street justice “punishment” attacks. But when they pass a death sentence on a local dog, they bite off more than they can handle
The Hangman At Home and Precious Hair & Beauty
Run With Her
(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Lia Campbell)
Bridging The Gap: Mobile
Documentary about a teenage endurance runner and her shifting relationships.
SEA 404
(Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Cherlyn Hsing-Hsin Liu, Michael Pisaro)
Black Box: Interruptions
How does postmodern engagement with technology mediate our bodily experience of, and interaction with, the natural world?
Shagbands
(Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Luna Carmoon; Writer: Luna Carmoon; Stars: Ruby Stokes, Frankie Box, Demi Butcher, Leila Katia McCalla, Alex Draper, Tommy Hunt, Juan O'Carroll, Frankie Wilson, Ruby Stokes, Frankie Box, Demi Butcher, Leila Katia McCalla, Alex Draper, Tommy Hunt, Juan O'Carroll)
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
In the summer heatwave of 2006, a gang of teenage girls in south London face strange sexual awakenings and a discovery of violence.
The Shift
(Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Laura Carreira; Writer: Laura Carreira; Stars: Anna Russell-Martin)
An agency worker gets bad news while she's shopping.
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
Signal 8
(Country: Hong Kong; Year: 2019; Director: Simon Liu)
Black Box: Interconnections
They said a storm is calling this way but we’re still waiting. Lives carry on in Hong Kong as traces of civic upkeep morph into sites of remembrance.
An Taigh Solais and The Fourfold
Silvering
(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Eilidh Nicoll)
Imaginings
A woman’s spiral into panic after discovering a grey hair.
Soft Animals
(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Renee Zhan; Writer: Renee Zhan; Stars: Paul Panting, Joanna Ruiz)
Imaginings
Two ex-lovers bump into each other at a train station.
Soothe
(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Rowan Abbott, Poppy Payne)
EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition
A young woman struggles to find a work-life balance. Presented with the world’s leading meditation app, can she finally get a break?
Souvenir Souvenir
(Country: France; Year: 2020; Director: Bastien Dubois)
Imaginings
For ten years I pretended I wanted to get my grandfather to share his memories of the Algerian War. Today, I’m not sure I want to hear what he has to say, or whether I want to make this film at all.
Step Tnto The River
(Country: China; Year: 2020; Director: Weijia Ma)
Family Values
Animated fable about the consequences of China’s one-child policy.
Jambo Cinema and West Country
Stop Nineteen
(Country: UK, Ireland; Year: 2020; Director: Danielle Swindells)
Consideration of the tourist industry that has sprung up around places associated with The Troubles.
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
Stripes
(Country: Germany; Year: 2019; Director: Ann Oren)
Black Box: Interruptions
A playful, Dada inspired exploration of optics and the surface of the image.
Tang Jër
(Country: Senegal; Year: 2020; Director: Selly Raby Kane)
Visions
Fantastical short set in a mysterious restaurant.
Thorax
(Year: 2019; Director: Siegfried A. Fruhauf)
Black Box: Interruptions
Cinema is a trick of the light, and Fruhauf harnesses the restless curiosity of early cinematic innovation to evoke a perceptual journey into the macro depths of cosmic abstraction.
Tri-Alogue #4
(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Caryn Cline, Linda Fenstermaker, Reed O'Beirne; Stars: Emily Durand, Emily Durand)
Black Box: Interconnections
Three filmmakers, one roll of film.
Aberración Cromática and The Dog With Wings (7)
Verisimilitude
(Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: David Proud; Writer: Justin Edgar; Stars: Laurie Davidson, Alice Lowe, Simon Lowe, Ruth Madeley, Esther Smith, Laurie Davidson, Alice Lowe, Simon Lowe, Ruth Madeley, Esther Smith)
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
An unemployed disabled actress watches all the disabled acting jobs go to able bodied actors. She is engaged as an advisor to a spoilt up and coming British film star, showing him how to be disabled for his latest role.
West Country
(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Rowan Ings)
Bridging The Gap: Mobile
A portrait of labour and land in the West Country, told with reflections from local 13-year-old Conor.
You Will Never Walk Alone
(Country: UK, Poland; Year: 2021; Director: Jagoda Tiok)
EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition
The film’s director ventures into memories of her childhood in conservative, catholic Poland to reflect on the 2020 abortion ban and the powerful rebellion that came after.
59th New York Film Festival early bird highlights Futura, Jane By Charlotte, James Baldwin: From Another Place and The Velvet Underground
Eye For Film continues to support festivals both locally and across the world. At the moment, we're covering:
French Film Festival
The UK's longest running celebration of Francophone cinema
Leeds International Film Festival
Thessaloniki International Film Festival
International showcase
Cannes Film Festival
Archive of festival coverage.
Sundance Film Festival
Daily diary and reviews from 2005-2018.
Berlin Film Festival
Coverage of the lynchpin German festival.
Search Movie Database
Browse our full archive
Browse our short film archive
Browse our media archive
