This year BFF20’s revamped short film showcase was moved from the comfort of a cinema onto a cosy couch.

Motivated by a desire to keep our staff and audience safe from covid-19, on Saturday 4th April we presented #bffsofashorts, our first ever online short film day.

From over 100 submissions, 21 films where short-listed, 14 screened ‘In Competition’ and 7 as ‘Official Selection’.  The standard of films selected from across Ireland was very high.

More people saw the short film competition than ever before!! Information from google analytics showed thousands of new followers to our webpage.  On Saturday 4th April alone we had 34,512 users throughout the day. This was a jump from 4,572 users the previous day.  79.5% of those who came to our page where first time visitors.

The website was accessed from 104 countries across the world with majority from Ireland and  UK.

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For the first time in the competition’s history, the judging panel chose two films to be joint winners, they were.

The Shift (Director: Megan K Fox), for its confident tone, it’s brilliant pacing and sense of comedy, clever use of the Irish and English languages, constantly surprising narrative turns and hilarious performances in a well-judged script.

Ciunas/Silence (Director: Tristan Heanue), for its subtle sense of a difficult and complex issue where the silences between dialogue were grippingly performed, the visual aesthetic perfectly framed and enhancing the drama of its narrative, and its keen understanding of the underlying emotions and motivation of its characters.

Some of the feedback we received from our audience on the day:

Just now finished watching #BFFSofaShorts and gotta say well done to @BelfastFilmFes1 and all of the filmmakers, what an incredible line up of short films. Really fun and inspiring in this current times.

 

A huge thanks to @BelfastFilmFes1 for giving all of us a platform this past week for our films. Many festivals postponed but this team battled on & what a festival it was. I’ve had people contact me that saw my film that would never be in a festival audience!

In response to the requests from those who missed it on the day BFF Sofa Shorts Day will run for one more day.   On what would have been our closing day of BFF20 on Thursday 9th April from 10am – midnight we will present a selection of the short films again.