Encounters reveals filmmakers in competition

Encounters - the Short Film and Animation Festival based in Bristol, UK - has unveiled the selected competition films for this year's festival. With a number of festival stalwarts alongside brand new talents the 21st edition of the festival -which runs between 15th and 20th September - is shaping up to be an important snapshot of both the international short film circuit and the UK short film scene.

Highlights in the international films include Excursion, the latest film from prolific Romanian director Adrian Sitaru. After the extremely popular Art, Sitaru's latest work sees a little boy steal a camera after the TV announces aliens have landed. Also screening is Everything Will Be OK, Patrick Vollrath's tense short which has already screened at the likes of Cannes and Karlovy Vary, and Ely Dagner's Waves '98 the winner of this year's Palme D'or for Best Short at Cannes. The extremely popualr documentary Shipwreck gets an airing alonsgide The Shack, the winner of this year's No Budget competition at the Hamburg Short Film Festival.  Jennifer Reeder - the winner of last year's International Competition with A Million Miles Away - returns to the festival with her latest film Blood Beneath The Skin while fellow US filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt will have massively successful animation World Of Tomorrow screened.

UK films on offer include the return of festival circuit stalwart Simon Ellis whose short Brass Heaven is a brilliantly observed guerilla documentary about British lads heading to Hamburg to partake of the 'local fun' on offer. Fyzal Boulifa - whose film The Curse was nominated for a BAFTA award - will be on hand to screen Rate Me while two known UK comedians - Katy Wix and Matt Berry - will unveil their shorts with Katy Wix ‘Dear Jean-Pierre’ and Matt Berry’s Wild Love respectively. 

The full festival programmes will be announced over the coming weeks. For the full list of participating filmmakers visit the Encounters website HERE.