BEST OF THE FEST
Fri 06 Mar | 18:30 | 87 mins | Recommended 18+ | £5
If you can’t make the rest of the fest, come to the Best of The Fest! Watch the highlights of this year’s festival with this shortlist of films in the running for our Best of The Fest Award.
THE CHILDREN OF ORPHEUS
Dir. Derkan Dogan | 7 mins | UK
An experimental short film exploring the chaotic and unifying synthesis of music, sound, and dance within London's busy and maddening cityscape.
MANASCHI
Dir. Peter Davies | 14 mins | UK
In the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, one of the world's oldest oral storytelling traditions endures - the Epic of Manas. Legends and myths of Manas - the traditional founder of Kyrgyzstan - are carried from village to village by prophet-like figures called Manaschis. But as modernity encroaches, the tradition is threatened. We follow Omurbek - a respected Manaschi - as he grapples with the changes faced with this ancient tradition.
HOLY HEAVÊNESS
Dir. Farnoosh Abedi, Negah Khezre Fardyardad, Mohammad Ghaffari | 10 mins | Iran
The unbearable lightness of the death of loved ones. There are wounds in life that eat away at you like leprosy. The weight of the death of loved ones sometimes becomes so overwhelming that to get rid of this weight another birth is inevitable.
A FROG SITS IN WATER
Dir. Dylan Friese-Greene | 5 mins | UK
Set during an all-consuming heatwave, the film follows a lone figure spiralling into psychosis as the world boils and rots around him. Surrounded by spinning fans, he blocks out the sunlight and plays his saxophone in a desperate attempt to to drown out reality and retreat inward.
CAMERAMAN
Dir. Arsalan Motavali | 15 mins | UK
In the late 90s, a newly immigrated Iranian cameraman finds himself adrift in London. Struggling to adapt, he must decide whether to risk his family’s limited savings on a stranger’s offer‚ one that promises a way back to the identity he once knew.
THE VIEWING
Dir. Nick Blake | 19 mins | UK
A house viewing spirals into a surreal nightmare for a young woman with a troubled past.
ROCK POOL
Dir. Dan McKay | 17 mins | UK
ROCK POOL invites the viewer into a space of quiet encounters, one that asks for attention, rewards stillness, and hopefully awakens a sense of awe for the hidden rhythms of the life all around us.
MEET THE JUDGES
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Lily is a graduate from Falmouth University where she studied Fine Art. Lily has worked for an arts organisation for several years now, and enjoys being part of a creative community.
Her interest in film extends to both filmmaking and film criticism. Her films often blend ideas of nostalgia, nature and character archetypes. She enjoy watching a wide variety of films, but is especially interested in films with experimental and transgressive aspects, such as the films of Antonia Bird, Andrea Arnold, David Lynch and John Waters.
Two Short Nights is a brilliant festival that celebrates and supports a variety of talented people from around the world. She has enjoyed attending the festival in previous years and has always been impressed by the creativity and variety of the shorts. She is excited to be more involved with the festival this year.
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Tomi Adesina is a screenwriter and lecturer in creative writing at the University of Exeter where she convenes the screenwriting modules. Her research explores representations of ageing and place in Nigerian and South Korean cinema. In 2018 she won the AMAA Achievement in Screenplay prize for her contribution to the film, Hakkunde.
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Osian Andrew is a Welsh film programmer, event producer and panel host. He began his career as a filmmaker before moving into film exhibition and programming, where his work focuses on accessible screenings, rebuilding cinema audiences, and championing Celtic language film in both short and long form. Osian is a BFI Film Academy Young Programmer and programmed the BFI Future Film Festival 2025. In 2024, he co-programmed and delivered the inaugural Celtic Voices event at the BFI London Film Festival, a programme he has since toured across the Celtic nations over the past two years. He is attending Two Short Nights Film Festival presenting another Celtic Voices screening as part of the festival programme, celebrating modern Celtic language cinema
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Allister is an artist-filmmaker and educator whose work explores place, community, and the ecologies of the moving image through collaborative and experimental practices. His films have been supported by the BFI and exhibited internationally in galleries, festivals, and journals. Recent work includes RE/POSIT/ORY (2024), a multi-screen installation examining archival bias. He is co-founder and co-director of Imperfect Cinema, a participatory film collective producing site-specific screenings, co-creative projects, and public film initiatives.
