During the Long Short Weekend there was stiff competition amongst the best of this year’s Irish/Northern Irish Short Films. The competition jury included Mike S. Ryan, Dawn Richardson and Hannah Mamalis.
Mike Ryan started out his career in film production as a location manager before moving on to produce many acclaimed films for the likes of Kelly Reichardt, Todd Solondz and Bela Tarr. His two most recent films, The Cry of Granuaile and The Ballad of Suzanne Cesaire, have both screened at BFF in recent years, with the latter winning Best International Film in 2024.
Dawn Richardson is an experimental filmmaker and artist based in Belfast. Working with analogue and immersive technologies, she explores documentary as a space for collaboration, improvisation, and resistance. Her work has travelled from Belfast to Beirut to Phnom Penh through the co-creation platform Hosta Projects.
Hannah Mamalis is a writer, performer and director based in Dublin. Her debut short Baby Steps won Best First Short Drama at Galway Film Fleadh 2023 and the audience award at DIFF 2024. Last year Hannah developed, starred in and co-wrote the RTE Player’s first original sitcom Good Boy. She is currently writing her first feature film Stranded with support from Screen Ireland’s Perspectives scheme.
Congratulations 🎉to this year’s…….
BFF25 SHORTS COMPETITION WINNER:
INTERNAL BLEEDING / DIRECTED BY ZOË NOLAN
and
HONOURABLE MENTION: NOSTALGIE / DIRECTED BY KATHRYN FERGUSON
JURY STATEMENT:
Internal Bleeding dramatises the journey of a character who reaches a meditative, restorative state through a cinematic experience that transports the viewer through its original presentation of light and time.
We were impressed with the directors ability to balance the visual and formal innovations of the film with a clear intention for grounded, warm and genuine performances.
Internal Bleeding had a deeply-felt sense of care, depth and emotion stitched into its core. It feels like a comment on where we are now as a society, exploring palpable feelings of loneliness, disconnection and isolation but also offers a sense of hope for where we could go in the future if we can give ourselves the grace to address what we’re missing. It is a forward looking film which we appreciated greatly.