Directors Notes

This week we’re bringing you Nimi’s interview with writer/director Rohan Parashuram Kanawade, whose debut feature Cactus Pears – a tender, life-affirming portrait of grief and queer love unfolding in…

Last Monday saw the British TV Broadcaster Channel 4 release Beth – a project billed as its first ever digital original drama, which was not only broadcast traditionally on linear TV as well as on Ch…

In this episode we’re joined by Daisy-May Hudson whom we last spoke to as part of our London Film Festival coverage alongside co-director Sophie Compton for their feature documentary Holloway. Today,…

Back in October, we headed to the Bolton Film Festival (a favourite, regular stop for us on the UK film festival circuit) to sit on the jury as one of the partners for the inaugural Slick Films Fund …

Self-funded with a minuscule budget of just £150,000 and shot on 16mm in Laos with non-actors and a skeleton crew who had to contend with snakes, poisoned well water and a mid-production camera brea…

This episode marks the last of our Oscar winning short film director interviews and features Sarah chat with Molly O’Brien, who joined DN a couple weeks before the Academy Awards to take us inside he…

How did a silent, father-daughter animation crafted over six and a half years in Iran defy odds to win an Oscar? We bring you the second part in our series of interviews with this year’s Academy Awar…

A film which has been on the Directors Notes radar since we caught it at the London Film Festival last October, Sarah speaks to Sandhya Suri, writer/director of the BAFTA nominated/British Independe…

A film for all the misfits who have also misplaced their instruction manuals for life and a filmmaker who first appeared on the Directors Notes pocast back in 2012 with his short film at the time, w…

Defying expectations of being the longshot nominee as the lone genre piece competing for the 2025 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film by triumphantly taking home the Oscar last Sunday, ‘I’m…

In this instalment of the Director’s Notes podcast, we explore the 18th BFI Future Film Festival, delving into its programme of electrifying moving shorts and speaking to the inspiring filmmakers be…

Writer/Director Franz Böhm speaks to DN about capturing the all too real horrors of a young man’s experiences on the frontline of the Ukraine-Russia war who is forced to make a difficult decision in …

Director/Editor Theo Panagopoulos sits down with DN to discuss his BAFTA nominated documentary short The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing for which he reclaims archival Scottish missionary footage …

Our first episode of 2025 sets the bar pretty high for the episodes to come this year. This week we’re joined by BAFTA film committee chair Anna Higgs who as well as discussing her route into the fil…

In our last episode of the Directors Notes podcast for 2024, we bring you Sarah’s chat with, at the time BIFA nominee and now, The Douglas Hickox Award winning director Christopher Andrews for his bl…

We sit down with Nina Gantz the talented filmmaker behind this year’s BIFA Best British Short winner Wander to Wonder, a stop-motion tale following a trio of tiny performers from a beloved children’s…

A film which we’ve been endlessly quoting here at DN and that has already bagged a Sundance Audience Award and four BIFA wins (with 10 more nominations still up for grabs), Kneecap director Rich Pepp…

The story of a man-child, obsessed with toys, who finds himself possessed by a puppet, Eros V’s BIFA nominated, twice SXSW winning horror-comedy short ‘Meat Puppet’ was always going to turn heads. Di…

A film we enjoyed so much that we invited writer/director Sasha Nathwani to join us for a (second) deep dive interview about his Crystal Bear winning feature debut ‘Last Swim’, in which he explains w…

The next in our series of director interviews from London Film Festival 2024, Sarah caught up with Holloway co-creators Sophie Compton & Daisy-May Hudson who picked up the Audience Award for Best Doc…