WHAT MAKES OUR FESTIVAL DIFFERENT?

1. AUTHENTIC INCLUSIVELY

Too many festivals try to reverse-engineer diversity and end up being “tick-boxy”. We know filmmakers are smart enough to see right through that. Instead, we know that true diversity comes from having a diverse programming team who, as filmmakers themselves, understand that beautifully, polished, well-crafted films can still be made by talented working class individuals at the beginning stages of their creative careers. Just because your film looks pretty, doesn’t mean you’re privileged - it means you’re talented. We pride ourselves on balancing our diversity standards with being “talent focused”. Our programming team is made up of eclectic, international taste-makers, and we want to program films that will have a wide appeal vs a pretentious niche.

To hold ourselves accountant to delivering a diverse program, we base our submission categories based on the budget of your film. If you’ve made a film on an iPhone with mates in your backyard then you won’t be competing with someone who has a rich uncle or got BFI funding - we separate those categories.

2. TRANSPARENCY

Some festivals claim to treat their filmmakers like royalty. Hell, from our experience, we’d just like most festivals to treat us like human beings. That means we will respectfully communicate and engage with submitting filmmakers. If you choose to submit to our festival you won’t be screaming into a silent void. Every filmmaker can receive feedback from our programmers if they request it. This data will prove to you that we’ve watched and thoughtfully considered your film AND it will give you insight into how competitive your film is/isn’t in the wider festival circuit.

3. WE BUILD INTO YOUR FUTURE 

Every filmmaker whose work is Officially Selected into our festival will get free submission to our Kino London Short Film Fund which grants up to £5000 in funding for your next project. 

Additionally, once your film is finished with the festival circuit, we offer short film distribution, either via our our own Short of the Week platform OR by introducing you to one of our partners. We’ve helped short filmmakers find distribution on Omeleto (YouTube’s #1 channel for short film), Klipist (the #1 ranking short film streamer on Google), and more. Festivals are great, but let’s face it, online exposure for your film is in the thousands or hundreds of thousands, while festival audiences are in the hundreds.

FINALLY! My filmmaker friends and I have been frustrated by so many film festivals and gone "this surely can be done better, right?"...so delighted to say, Dustin & Co. nailed it. A proper cinema screening, great scheduling/programming/curating, high calibre of films and super cool for filmmakers to network. What a festival should be!

- JAMES BUTTON (Writer/Director ROBUTLER - 2023 Official Selection)

We had our film in what is the festival's first year, and it proved to be one of the best experiences. Dustin and everyone involved have created a really wonderful thing. I don't know how they have managed to foster such an engaged and kind community, but they have and I hope it stays!

- GEMMA NORTON (Writer/Director TROUBLED WATERS - 2020 Official Selection)

For once a festival that truly puts all its focus, energy and attention on the filmmakers and their stories. The feedback was thorough and communication was excellent. I'm excited to see the future of this festival - Dustin has a great eye for welcoming new talent and creating a strong sense of community. Cannot recommend this festival enough!

- GRACE PARRY (Writer, Director, Producer, Actress OUTSIDERS - 2021 Official Selection)

This is my favourite festival going! Generous and supportive to all, they do an incredible job of championing indie filmmakers. I love how affordable it is. The quality of the work at the festival itself is so high and really helps create a platform for up-and-coming creatives. For a relatively new festival, it all feels like a very well-oiled and welcoming organisation.

- LUCY HILTON-JONES (Producer, Writer, Actor A PRESENT FOR A GOOD GIRL - 2021 Official Selection & TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART - 2022 Official Selection)

One of the UK's best shorts festivals. Dustin and the team are great, communicative, and filmmaker-focused. The films are of a high-quality across the board and they were screened at wonderful cinemas around London, with good opportunities to network with other filmmakers and insightful panel discussions.

- FLORIS DRIEBERGEN (Director DUET - 2023 Official Selection)

I adore this festival. It's so personal and so diverse and really embodies what filmmaking is all about. Such a special place in my heart for this team and all they do!

- JESSICA COURTNEY LEEN (Director, Producer, Actor BRONOUGH - 2021 Official Selection & NOT MY SISTER - 2023 Official Selection)

While Jury Members rotate annually, previous Jury Members have included Emmy Nominee Rolfe Kent (Dexter, Sideways, About Schmidt, Up in the Air, Mean Girls), Giles Alderson (Three Day Millionaire, The Dare, Arthur & Merlin & The Filmmaker’s Podcast), Mali Elfman (producer of birth/rebirth, and Karen Gillan’s The Party’s Just Beginning), Amit Shah (The Hundred Foot Journey, Last Christmas), cinematographer Vince Knight (Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey), screenwriter Neil Linpow (Little Bone Lodge), Clare Cooney (Departing Seniors - & Senior Programmer at Omeleto), and more.

FESTIVAL DIRECTOR

OUR SELECTION PROCESS

All of our festival preselectors, programmers, and jury members are entirely comprised of award-winning filmmakers - you know, people qualified to judge films.

All submissions are reviewed by one of our preselectors. Preselectors then recommend which films should be viewed by our programming team.

The programming team watches all films deemed worthy by our preselector team, then they meet to debate which films should be programmed based upon how many films we can fit into the time we’ve been given in our cinemas. NOTE: last year we expanded our festival from 2 days in cinema to 4 days because there were just too many great films we didn’t want to reject.

Once the programming team has made the final decision on Official Selections, they start to deliberate about which films should be nominated for awards. The programming team decides the nominees, and the nominees get sent to our Jury.

Jury members vote in whatever category(s) they are qualified to vote in. For example, if a jury member is a composer, they will vote for the Best Score Category and not the Best Screenplay category.

Award Winners are decided based on popular vote from our Jury.

History of our Festival

Although Kino London has been operating events since 2009 (most infamously know for our Short Film Open Mic and filmmaking Meet-Up events), our Kino London Short Film Festival first opened for submissions in 2019. The festival was founded under the name Kino London presents The People’s Film Festival, and our first edition took place over two days at the Whirled Cinema in London, March 2020.

Due to covid, the second edition of our festival, in April 2021, took place exclusively online.

In 2022, we returned to Whirled Cinema for our third edition to host live screenings once again + we continued to offer our program online. As a hybrid festival with both physical and digital screenings we were able to make our festival more inclusive for international filmmakers unable to travel, plus triple the reach to international audiences. Also in 2022, we decided to unify our brand with our other Kino offerings, renaming our festival the Kino London Short Film Festival. The same year our festival was recognised as a BIFA qualifier for their Best British Short Film Category.

For our 4th edition, we expanded the footprint of our hybrid festival to run over 8 days virtually, and 6 days in 3 different arthouse cinemas across London - the Garden Cinema, the Castle Cinema, and once again Whirled Cinema. We also introduced our Industry Night, which proved to be a high impact networking night for filmmakers to meet short film festival curators and distributors.

For our 5th edition, we expanded yet again to include an additional day in cinemas.