Our BIFA qualifying film festival takes place every summer in central London.

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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 is eligible to receive 40% off at our Kino London Short Film Fund which grants up to £5000 in funding for your next project + access to equipment & mentorship.

Once your film is done with the festival circuit, we offer short film distribution, either via our our own Weekly Pick OR by introducing you to one of our partners. We’ve helped short filmmakers find distribution on Omeleto, Klipist, and more.

A LOOK AT LAST YEAR’S FESTIVAL

At the 2025 edition of our festival we showcase over 100 brilliant shorts August 22-25 exclusively at The Garden Cinema in Holborn.

Highlights included “THE PEARL COMB” by Ali Cook which went on to be Oscar & BAFTA Shortlisted , “FUCK-A-FAN“ by Muriel d’Ansembourg which went on to win a Golden Calf at Nederlands Film Festival, and “THE LAST DANCE“ by Hayden McLean which went on to be nominated for Best UK Short at Raindance.

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.

  1. All submissions are watched in full by one of our preselectors.

  2. Preselectors then recommend which films should advance to be viewed by our programers.

  3. Our programers watch all films deemed worthy by our preselectors.

    • No programming decisions are made until all submissions are watched. This means that a filmmaker who applies to our late deadline has just as good a chance as a filmmaker who applies to our earlybird deadline.

  4. Then our programmers deliberate on which films should be included it the festival

    • The amount of Official Selections vary from year to year based upon how many hours we have in our cinema venues (Last year our program comprised of 20 hours).

    • Tough decisions always need to be made. Films that we truly wish we could program, but can’t due to the lack of time in the cinema, are awarded Finalist & Semi-Finalist status depending on how far into deliberations they make it.

  5. Once our programers have made the final decision on Official Selections, they start to deliberate about which films should be nominated for awards.

  6. The programming team decide the Award Nominees.

  7. The Nominees are then watched by our Jury Members.

    • 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.

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

KLSFF AWARDS

  • Best No Budget Short

  • Micro Budget Short

  • Best Low Budget Short

  • Best Sponsored Short

  • Best Director

  • Best Performance in a Drama

  • Best Performance in a Comedy

  • Best Cinematography

  • Best Screenplay

  • Best Editing

  • Best Original Score

  • Best Production Design

  • Best First Time Filmmaker

  • Audience Award

WHAT FILMMAKERS ARE SAYING ABOUT THE FESTIVAL

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)

A FILM FESTIVAL BY FILMMAKERS FOR FILMMAKERS!

All of our festival preselectors, programmers, and jury members are entirely comprised of award-winning filmmakers who understand your frustrations with the wider festival circuit. We’re frustrated too, but rather than just bitch about it we decided to start our own festival to give you the experience we wish we had.

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), and more.

Festival Director

Dustin Curtis Murphy is a multi-disciplined Oscar qualified short and feature narrative filmmaker.

His debut micro-budget sci-fi feature COYOTE (2023) starring Therica Wilson-Read (Netflix’s The Witcher) and & BIFA winner Ruhtxjiaïh Bèllènéa (The Last Tree) was nominated for Best Feature Film at the National Film Awards and won the Audience Award at the Romford Film Festival, and Best Director at the BIFA qualifying Unrestricted View Film Festival. It’s available to watch on Amazon in North America, and in the UK (under the title ‘“TELEPORT“).

As producer & EP, his short film highlights include the Oscar qualified WHAT MEN DO FOR LOVE (2024), and our slate of Kino Originals including SPACE DADDY (2025), OLYMPUS LOST (2025), EVOL (2024), & DON’T BURY IT (2024).

As a writer/director, his Short film highlights include the BIFA qualified EVERYTHING IS OUT TO GET ME (2023), SAMARITAN (2020) Winner: Best International Short at Sedona Film Festival, Winner: Grand Prize at The Weather Channel’s #EarthFilmChallenge, and FILTHY ANIMALS (2021) Shortlisted at Raindance.

Raised in Southern California, Dustin has been living in the UK since 2017.

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, a name chosen for our democratic & open approach to film curation. The first edition of The People’s Film Festival 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. 2024 would be the last year we offered a hybrid festival.

By our 6th edition, we had doubled in size in terms of the amount of films selected. This was also the first year that the Garden Cinema became our exclusive venue - happening over 4 days over the late August bank holiday. This event featured over 100 short films (including 2 Open Screen events) and 6 Industry Sessions on various topics from distribution, to shooting on film, to on screen intimacy, and more.