Louis le Prince International Short Film Competition 1

The opening programme of our international short film competition, named after Louis le Prince who made the world’s first moving images in Leeds in 1888, offers a powerful social commentary on autonomy, loss, compliance, memory, and identity. The Witness Tree and Nostalgia present compassionate observations of cultural norms, generational trauma, malady, and societal conventions while eschewing melodrama. L’Avance and Vox Humana urge us to examine our role in cultural erosion, classicism’s cognitive dissonance, and the oppression global majority peoples often face. Mother and Uroboro reflect on the profound impact of tragedy, collective grief, and shared humanity.