This is Endometriosis

"Our mantra throughout was that we wanted to give some sense of how endometriosis can feel for Georgie. That feeling is not a fixed thing: it encompasses self-doubt, confusion, unreliable memory. The fractured, hallucinatory style is a way of expressing that ambiguity."

A few days before their British Short Film award win at Sunday’s BAFTAs, co-directors Georgie Wileman & Matt Houghton joined DN to reveal how they sought to reject documentary storytelling conventions when making This Is Endometriosis in favour of a fragmented, hallucinatory structure that mirrors the disorientating reality of living with chronic pain and the ways in which endometriosis robs sufferers of time.

And in case you missed it when we spoke to them last year, you can also watch our interview with Baz Sells, Dean Atta & Ben Jackson, the team behind BAFTA British Short Animation winner Two Black Boys in Paradise, who also shared their favourite short film recommendations with us.

Cardboard

"That sense of play, that sense of wonder—it feels like it's in short supply and it's so important to fight for it."

In his BAFTA-nominated animated short film Cardboard, J.P. Vine invites us into a world of imagination where a simple box can become a spaceship, and your overwhelmed father has the choice to dwell on his fears or join you on an intergalactic adventure. In our interview, Vine reveals how a family road trip across the Nevada desert and a personal childhood memory of homelessness inspired his emotionally resonant story.

Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud

"Journalists are being targeted and attacked for a very specific reason. It's an attack on the truth."

Craig Renaud speaks to us about Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud, an Oscar nominated documentary short (streaming now on HBO Max) which excavates twenty years of verité footage to chronicle the years he and his brother Brent Renaud spent covering some of the world’s most dangerous conflicts, until Brent was tragically killed by Russian soldiers on March 13, 2022, while reporting on the war in Ukraine. Craig explains his process of facing the impossible task of turning a tragedy into a cinematic tribute while wrestling with the ethical boundaries of showing death on screen.

Retirement Plan

"This is the closest I've come to teenage me drawing comics in my room and having the flexibility, trying to make myself laugh."

John Kelly talks about the creative shift that led him to “do more with less” on his Oscar-nominated short Retirement Plan — and how making the film became a cathartic way to process his thoughts on retirement, ageing, and ultimately, mortality.

The Singers

"I wasn't really taught, like other boys in my life, how to express myself emotionally and how to be vulnerable. I found out later that I could do that through art. In a meta way, this is me bearing my soul."

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Sam Davis opens up about the deeply personal driving force behind The Singers (available to watch on Netflix), where gruff, lonely men find unexpected communion and reveal themselves through song. In our interview, he walks us through the chaotic, soulful alchemy of assembling unsung talents from TikTok, subway stations and New Orleans' Bourbon Street.