Exclusive First Look at the BIFA 2025 Douglas Hickox Award (Best Debut Director) Longlist

Renewing our ongoing partnership, Directors Notes had the honour of unveiling the filmmakers longlisted for the Douglas Hickox Award (Best Debut Director) at the 28th British Independent Film Awards (BIFA). These 12 directors represent the boldest new voices in film, and we’re thrilled to spotlight their stunning feature debuts. As always, we’ve already begun digging into their unique production journeys alongside their counterparts from across this year’s award categories in our ongoing BIFA interview series.

As One

Directors Jessie Oldfield and Adam Murfet join us to explain how they crafted a powerful, wordless dialogue through movement in their intimate dance short As One, where a transformative encounter unfolds entirely through a raw and visceral physical language.

10 Striking Shorts From the 69th Edition of the BFI London Film Festival

This year's most exciting BFI London Film Festival shorts trend was a cohesive push into experiential cinema. These 10 DN curated titles from the festival’s 90 films strong programme deftly transport you to their bizarre and brilliant realities. Take note!

Do Most Film Festivals Require Premiere Status?

We’ve long admired the stats powered work of Producer/Film Data Researcher Stephen Follows, and so when we wanted to know—driven by the pretty much daily frequency of this question from filmmakers submitting their work to Directors Notes—just how many film festivals ‘actually’ require premiere status for the films they programme, we immediately reached out to Stephen to settle the misconceptions many of you have about the issue. In pure clickbait style, the results may surprise you…

One Punch

Writer/Director Huse Monfaradi speaks to DN about navigating the searing emotional intensity of his quietly powerful drama One Punch, where grief, guilt and forgiveness collide in the wake of a single, life-altering moment.