Genre Filmmakers of the Future

Shorts Showcase

SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW CLOSED

From 2024, Forbidden Worlds Film Festival will be looking to find the Genre Film-Makers of the Future and will be hosting two hour-long showcases of short genre films (sci-fi, action, horror) from around the world over the course of the weekend. The winners of each category will be selected by a panel of judges made up of film professionals except for the Forbidden Worlds Audience Choice Award which will be selected by the audience who will watch the shorts on a massive 18m x 15m IMAX screen.


VISIT OUR FILMFREEWAY PAGE

Please read all rules and requirements for submitting your project:

If your film is shortlisted, it will be screened at the Forbidden Worlds Film Festival on the former Bristol IMAX screen in front of a live audience.

  • To submit a film, you must have the rights or have permission from the owner to submit the film on their behalf.

  • All films must have an English subtitle track included, otherwise they will not be selected for screening.

  • Forbidden Worlds will not pay any fee to screen short films and due to limited budget, we cannot pay for travel or accommodation for any film-makers who wish to attend the festival.

RULES AND TERMS

1. The film must have been made within the past two years. We do not accept any films completed before January 2022.

2. Your short can be live action or animated, documentary or fiction, however it must belong to either the action, horror, science-fiction or fantasy genre.

3. All films must include English subtitles, especially if the film is not shot in English. This is also to make the screenings more inclusive for those with hearing needs.

4. To be eligible for awards, short films must not be available for public viewing on any video hosting sites such as Facebook, Youtube, Vimeo, etc.

5. Short films should ideally be 10 mins long, but anything up to 15 minutes may be considered subject to our panel.

6. Forbidden Worlds is a competitive event and unless notified otherwise, all shorts (except those that are publicly online) officially selected are eligible for competition. Not all submissions received are selected for the Forbidden Worlds Film Festival

7. While submissions will be shortlisted by the festival organisers, all shortlisted films will be voted upon by a panel of judges made up of film professionals. Information on the judges will be listed on our website.

8. All shorts can be considered eligible for nomination into one or more competitive categories.

9. Forbidden Worlds reserve the right to refuse to accept any submission deemed by the Festival to be inappropriate, or not fitting in with our values. Should you have any queries, you can contact us by email on team@forbiddenworldsfilmfestival.co.uk

10. Films must be submitted via the FilmFreeway platform only. We do not accept submissions through our website or email address.

Meet the judges

  • Photgraph of Nida Manzoor by Saima Khalid

    Nida Manzoor

    Nida Manzoor is an award-winning genre-comedy writer and director across film and television. Best known for creating, directing and writing the Channel 4 comedy series We Are Lady Parts, Nida has received multiple accolades including the BAFTA for Best TV Comedy Writing 2022.

    She began her film career working as a runner and made her directing debut on the first series of BBC Three’s Enterprice in 2018 and was subsequently awarded a RTS Craft & Design Award for Best Director (Comedy Drama). Following this, in 2019 she directed two episodes of Doctor Who. Nida's debut feature Polite Society for Working Title and Focus Features was recently released in the UK and the US to great acclaim after its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

    She is currently filming We Are Lady Parts series 2 which will air in 2024.

  • Jed Shepherd

    Acclaimed writer/director/producer Jed Shepherd has made it his personal mission to bring the British Horror business back to its glory days.

    Jed’s work includes the multi-award-winning Sundance Favourite Dawn of the Deaf, Salt, and Host, the latter of which is 100% certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and is the highest-rated horror film of 2020. Host has also been hailed as 'The Scariest Film of all Time' in a recent scientific study. The Host team reunited to make 2022’s Dashcam for Blumhouse, premiering in the coveted Midnight Madness strand at TIFF.

    Jed is currently writing upcoming movies for Blumhouse, and producing a prison film with StudioCanal. His shorts are being turned into feature films at Disney and Amazon. He is also Netflix's Emerging Filmmaker of the Year and has written and directed Flashback for the streamer which is playing now.

  • Tara Judah

    Tara Judah has worked for over ten years as a film critic, editor and in cinema exhibition in Australia and the UK.

    From Melbourne's iconic Astor Theatre, via Bristol's Cube Microplex and 20th Century Flicks video shop, to the award-winning Watershed, Tara has curated and conversed over hours of classic, archive and repertory cinema.

    Tara is currently a postgraduate researcher at the University of West England, in collaboration with Watershed and the University of Exeter. Her research focuses on the role of independent cinema in the age of on-demand culture.

    Tara is also an editor at Senses of Cinema and for MUBI’s critics’ reviews.

  • Oliver Harper

    For over a decade Oliver has been producing hugely popular retrospectives on YouTube covering movies from the 80s and 90s. Providing an educational approach to his reviews with editing and presentation to rival TV.

    The past few years he has moved into documentary filmmaking, directing the critically acclaimed documentary, In Search of the Last Action Heroes, celebrating the action movies from the 80s.

    Recently he finished his latest feature, Here Comes A New Challenger, exploring the history and culture impact of the most popular fighting game ever made, Street Fighter 2.

  • Sophie Mair

    Award winning horror co-writer/director Sophie Mair’s short films have screened at over 200 international film festivals, including SXSW, Sundance London, Tampere, Sitges, Fantasia and London Film Festival.

    She has been commissioned through UK Film Council, Creative England and BFI and is currently in active development with the BFI Film Fund on her debut feature.

    Sophie is a BAFTA Connect member and a John Brabourne Awardee and is represented by Catherine Goldstone at The Haworth Agency.