Liverpool brings the World to Screen:
The 6th LJMU MA Short Film Festival
is on its way
The annual LJMU MA Short Film Festival is making a return for its sixth-year running. The 2026 edition of the festival will take place this spring, online and in person between (from March 20th to 27th), including over forty films from more than twenty countries.
Organised and run by MA Film students from Liverpool John Moores University, the festival features four programmes, reflecting different film styles: fiction, animation, documentary and experimental films. The selection is highly varied, comprising a range of cultures and aesthetic tastes, and showcasing the excellence that student filmmaking can achieve!
LJMU MA Short Film Festival will be held both online through the festival website (from the 20th to 27th of March) and in person at the Kazimier (March 20th) and the Redmond’s building (from March 23rd to 26th) whilst the awards ceremony will be held at Scale (March 27th). Go on the website for programme details and for booking a FREE ticket for the Opening Part and the Awards Ceremony.
When the festival opens, you will be able to VOTE online for the best film that will receive the Paper Bird Audience Award! For juries, one per programme, consisting of last year’s winners, film industry and academic experts and LJMU undergraduate students will choose the 2026 Paper Bird Awards for Fiction, Animation, Documentary and Experimental. All of this year’s winners will be revealed at our Awards ceremony at Scale.
Since the Festival’s debut in 2021, it has been curated, planned and run by LJMU’s MA Film students, offering an invaluable ‘hands-on’ learning experience. It helps them build a range of practical skills while also allowing them to express their creativity through poster design, social media promotion and of course the selection of films around the world!
LJMU MA Short Film Festival reaching its sixth edition is proof of the dedication that the MA Film students have given to making the event possible.
Dr Lydia Papadimitriou, festival director and programme leader of the MA Film said: ‘With a visually striking poster, designed by MA Film alumni Leo Lima based on ideas by our current students Will Knowles and Aimee Challinor, the sixth edition of the LJMU MA Short Film Festival promises a very exciting selection of international student films screened in person and online. I am so proud that the festival, curated and organised by the MA Film students at LJMU is becoming ever more embraced by the community in Liverpool and beyond. Join us for the opening party, the screenings/Q&As and the closing ceremony!’
While students are involved in all festival related roles, the festival owes a lot for its smoothing running to Martin Jones, festival coordinator and tutor, who said: ‘Reaching its sixth edition is a testament to the hard work of the students who make the LJMU MA Short Film Festival possible. Each year, we aim to provide audiences with the best in emergent student filmmaking, and this year’s edition promises to do just that. With an eclectic programme comprising 41 films from 24 countries, in the categories of Fiction, Documentary, Animation, & Experimental film, audiences are sure to find something to enjoy.’
Notes to Editor:
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For immediate release.
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For further information, get in touch with-
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The links to the official LJMU website, SFF website and MA Film course are listed below.
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The links to the official LJMU MA Short Film Festival social media and Podcast are listed here: http://linktr.ee/ljmumasff2026
Below is a curated and varied list of films that’ve been chosen by the students of LJMU’s MA Film course to represent each branch of this year’s Festival:
Fiction
Chop Chop: A Scottish Pakistani father clashes with his religious father over whether to have his son circumcised.
Portrait: A photographer entrusted with capturing the final images of the recently deceased, struggles to balance his secretive profession against the pressures of his home life.
Animation
A Fistful of Redos: ‘The bounty-hunting cowboy ‘Freddy Fasthands’ seeks to single handedly take down an entire tavern’s worth of outlaws. With the power to rewind time at will, nothing stands in his way, other than his own perfectionism.’
Cows: ‘Moo Moo simply isn’t finding joy in her picturesque life anymore when by luck a brand-new farm moves in across the road! With a rebellious heart, she escapes but finds that the grass isn’t greener on the other side.’
Documentary
When the Clouds Are Moving: ‘A poetic depiction of an air traffic controller’s life, balancing the demands of work against her love of nature. ‘
Someone Else’s Life: ‘Umi seeks to understand her parents when she was a toddler, through home footage lovingly and extensively recorded by her.’
Experimental
For Those That Lived There: A meditation on a community in metamorphosis amidst the gentrified remnants of Chicago’s Cabrini-Green, tracing displaced Black legacies and emerging migrant narratives.
Bouffon: A twisting tale of love, regret, and clowns, told across three chapters.
