Meet our 2025 Jury Members

This year's short film competition represents the best in contemporary filmmaking - spanning all kinds of genres and styles, packed full of stories that will warm the cockles, make you laugh or get you thinking. We'd like to introduce you to our 2025 Short Film Competition Jury, who will have the difficult task of selecting the best of the best.

Best Short Film & WTF Award Jury

Short Film Award: £1,000 cash prize / WTF Award: £500 cash prize

Heather Bradshaw is a film programmer and film critic based in Glasgow, with interests in animation, folklore and archive cinema. She has worked for the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Manchester Animation Festival, Indie Cork and Copenhagen Short Film Festival, as well as participating in the GoCritic! 2024 writing workshop at AniFilm in Liberec and the Rotten Tomatoes Media Inclusion Initiative at Toronto International Film Festival. Heather has curated numerous programmes and competitions for Glasgow Film Festival and Glasgow Short Film Festival, as well as the Osprey short film awards at Keswick Film Festival, and the World Animation Competition at Leeds International Film Festival.

Solomon Smith is a filmmaker and musician who explores social and political commentary. He interprets real world issues and uncovers original, diverse perspectives through symbolism, imagery and fantastical stories. As a freelance film/music workshop facilitator and member of Film Pardna, (an offshoot of Afroflux), community arts are at the heart of his creative practice.

Joseph Wallace is a filmmaker and curator, exploring social class and power through the lens of pop culture. He has worked with leading arts organisations, including BFI, RSC, 16 Days 16 Films and Edinburgh International Film Festival, and has written for Sight & Sound magazine and Second Sight Films. In 2024, he graduated from the National Film and Television School with an MA in Film Curation and Programming

Animation Short Film Jury

£300 Cash Prize

Three times BAFTA nominated and multi-award winning Osbert Parker (left) is a a filmmaker known for creating stories using experimental and innovative film techniques. With 35 years experience of working in the creative industries, Parker balances his freelance work with delivering masterclasses, seminars & running international animation workshops in Europe, South America and the UK. Committed to helping new generations of filmmakers, Parker is a (SFHEA) Senior Fellow of The Higher Education Academy and a regular visiting animation lecturer at (NFTS) The National Film & Television School.

Louis Hudson is an animator and director who has created characterful work and films for the likes of BBC, Channel 4, and Nickelodeon. Louis also runs Overlap Animation Show & Tell, possibly the most unique animation event going. A thriving animation community has grown around it, creating opportunities for animators and drawing industry into the West Midlands.

Laurie Hill is an award-winning multi-media animator and director often working with archival and found materials. Based in London, he studied at the Royal College of Art and his work has screened at many festivals and galleries worldwide including Sundance, AFI Fest, Telluride Film Festival, Museum of Modern Art New York, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, New Art Gallery Walsall, Cornerhouse Manchester and Museum Of London.

Colour Box Jury

£300 Cash Prize

Will Kew is Education Coordinator at Ikon Gallery in Birmingham.

Screendance Jury

£300 Cash Prize

Zara Portlock (left) is Audience Engagement Manager at dance development organisation FABRIC, with a focus on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.

Subathra Subramaniam (right), Akademi’s Artistic Director and Joint CEO, is one of UK’s leading choreographers and educators working at the confluence of dance, culture and science having spent over 20 years as Artistic Director of two of the UK’s pioneering South Asian dance companies – Angika and Sadhana Dance.

Optical Sound Short Film Jury

£300 Cash Prize

Moira Salt (left) is a multimedia artist, looking at B/black diasporas, particularly women, and their connection to memory, myth, and land. She uses geology, technology and fiction to imagine voices of the unspoken, which cast a critical eye on capitalism and environmental consumption. Screenings and exhibitions include Needs and Freedoms, 16 Nicholson Street Gallery, Black British Shorts II, Glasgow International, where the restless oceans pound, Bowling Harbour, and others. She has been commissioned by Sustran's, 2021, and was the 2023 recipient of the David Dale studio residency. She is currently a participant of Syllabus VII 24/25 and trustee of Cinenova.

Scottish composers Andrew Wasylyk and Tommy Perman have orbited each other’s worlds for a number of years through audio-visual collaborations spanning record releases, films and sound installations. Wasylyk’s cinematic compositions have been nominated for the Scottish Album of the Year Award and been awarded BBC Radio 6 Music’s Gideon Coe’s Album of the Year. He has collaborated with former National Poet for Scotland, Liz Lochhead, and written soundtracks for Radio 4. Perman’s work as a musician and DJ has taken him across the world, with numerous record releases under his own name and with experimental group/arts collective FOUND, alongside visual works at the Sydney Opera House and National Museum of Scotland. Wasylyk and Perman’s first collaborative album ‘Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On’ is out now on Clay Pipe Music.

Want a taster of what's on the short film menu this year? Give our short films trailer a watch...

And come along and find out the winning films at our Awards Do.