The WeAreDN Awards 2025 Winners

For those of you who didn’t have the pleasure of joining us at last week’s sold out awards ceremony, we’re delighted to share highlights from our celebration of independent filmmaking excellence. The evening brought together a community of visionary filmmakers, dedicated crew members, talented cast and passionate industry partners – all united in celebration of creative innovation and storytelling brilliance. We’re incredibly proud of our award winners (and the DN community who showed up en masse to cheer them on) and invite you all to watch the winning films from the comfort of your screen, wherever you may be. You’ll also find links to our in-depth interviews with these impressive directors so you can delve into the creative journeys behind their outstanding productions.

The Ceiling

We speak to director Louisa Connolly-Burnham about devising the uncomfortably effective shooting approach of long takes for short film The Ceiling - written by and starring Louisa Sexton - so audiences fully felt the visceral tension of her nuanced exploration of consent and arousal non-concordance.

To Call Home Always The Same Place

Giada Bossi breaks down how she worked closely with musician Arssalendo to build a three-act visual/sonic journey capturing the vibrant euphoria and profound introspection of adolescence in their hybrid music video short, To Call Home Always the Same Place.

Park Benches

Dan Braga Ulvestad takes us inside the deep level of collaboration that was necessary between himself and actors Stan Rawlings and Iona Champain for his elegantly stripped-back two-hander short Park Benches - developed from co-writer Joe Favalaro's original story - where a couple reckon with their mortality and heavy emotive past.