Around this time of year, the S/W team would usually find themselves encamped in dark screening rooms around the world, immersed in the programming of some of our favourite festivals. However, with COVID-19 restrictions meaning Encounters opted for a completely Digital Edition, TIFF and the upcoming BFI London Film Festival adopted a hybrid approach of limited IRL screenings combined with virtual ones, like most of 2020, things were a little different.

Despite these changes, we’ve still managed to consume a plethora of festival shorts over the last month and will be looking to bring as many online with S/W as soon as possible. Along with our festival coverage in September, we also managed to feature 20 films with subjects ranging from goalkeepers to conception and friend of the site Lewis Arnold popped by (via Zoom of course) to discuss his new project – an online resource for filmmakers called Directors Now.

Team Favourites

For our ‘Best of the Month’ picks, each member of the team here at S/W votes for one short from our monthly coverage – one that really made a lasting impression on them and feels worthy of even more praise. Limiting ourselves to just three picks, we believe every short we feature on S/W is great, but these are the ones we can’t shake – the ones that made us laugh, cry, scream and occassionally all three!. This month, our trio of films includes a short that blends genre to create something fresh and original, a tragically-funny tale of Russian excess and a profile doc that’s almost enough to restore your faith in politicians.