WeAreDN Awards 2026 – The Winners

If you’ve followed Directors Notes for any stretch of these last twenty years, you’ll know we’re not really in the business of gatekeeping; we have grown and developed by curating an incredibly wide array of films to put in front of our audience and then urge them to dig further. The third edition of the WeAreDN Awards was that impulse made manifest.

A heartfelt thanks goes out to our generous Supporting Partners who made the night possible. To Leuchtturm1917 for providing our beautiful bespoke awards, Hiike Independent, the official supporters of our Best Comedy Short award, and to our festival friends Bolton Film Festival, Aesthetica Short Film Festival & Exit 6 Film Festival for providing the prizes for Sarah’s unconventional game of film Bingo.

For those of you not in the room on the night, or who want to reexperience the rush of the evening’s screening, you can watch the winning films and read our interviews with the awardees over on DN right now.

Lumps

"The film holds up a funhouse mirror to how broken women's healthcare can be, but it's also deliberately ridiculous; an effervescent portrait of a woman who takes herself too seriously."

Maya Winkler channels her own health scare into delightfully off-kilter comedy short Lumps, a deadpan descent into the absurdities of navigating the medical system as a woman - anchored by electric performances from Hannah Kanter & Courtney Parchman as besties determined to cause as much chaos as possible before the final bell tolls.

Forever Yours

"You can't construct genuine emotional manipulation through irony or with your tongue in your cheek — an audience feels that immediately and you lose them."

Elliott Louis McKee explains why the only way to truly betray the audience for their short Forever Yours was to first seduce them sincerely. The film presents a tender indie-romance about a woman devoted to her paralysed partner—until it quietly reveals itself as something else entirely.

Figlie di Partenope

"For centuries, they have been part of Neapolitan life and tradition, embodying a form of gender fluidity that feels both historically rooted and strikingly present."

Lorenz Klapfer invites us into the world of the Femminielli, the revered trans community born of a 13th century Neapolitan miracle, through his stunningly cinematic Figlie di Partenope. He talks to us about the making of this beautiful, poetic documentary, the curiosity of societal contradictions and how legends change over time, and how his vision for the short was further shaped when he met his own Femminielli, who would go on to star in the film.

The Snip

"The truth in The Snip is that a large percentage of men feel threatened and uncomfortable with the idea of a vasectomy, and it gives me the opportunity to make fun of that, push the comedy into the absurd and expose how ludicrous that threat on masculinity actually is."

Writer/Director Ben S. Hyland shares the real-life inspiration behind his sharp vasectomy comedy The Snip, which satirises fragile masculinity with the perfect amount of testicle gags.

Far From The Plains

"As adults, I feel our imagination gets a bit dulled as we grow more cynical, framing a story from a child's perspective allows us to draw outside the lines somewhat."

An urban stable becomes a sanctuary for a boy carrying his mother's grief as great storms loom as Luigi Sibona delves into the rich narrative possibilities of filtering themes of loss, isolation and a crumbling world through the language of magical realism in his Grey Moth produced, South London set short, Far From the Plains.