LJMU MA Film Festival 2022 begins 1-8 April

Following the success of last year’s online Short Film Festival which reached an overwhelming 2000+ viewers from 47 countries around the world, LJMU’s MA Film students are hosting the second annual event which promises to be bigger and better than its debut.  

The festival celebrates and throws the spotlight on the amazing films made by highly talented students internationally. From the 1st to the 8th of April 2022, 40 high quality student films from 22 countries will premiere digitally to be enjoyed and celebrated by a wide audience. The films, separated into three distinct strands - Fiction, Documentary, and Animation - will then compete for the ‘Paper Bird’ Award.  

A jury comprised by industry specialists, last year’s winners and current film students will decide on this year’s best films. There will also be an audience Paper Bird Award – where viewers can vote for their favourite film.  

Created by students as part of the module ‘Exploring Film Festivals, Distribution and Exhibition’, the LJMU MA Short Film Festival is a unique and innovative educational experience that is exclusive to Liverpool John Moore’s University.  

Under the direction of Dr Lydia Papadimitriou and Jacqui Griffin, LJMU MA SFF is organised exclusively by MA students who have taken on the necessary roles for a film festival to happen: selecting and programming films, liaising with filmmakers, organizing social media promotion and publicity, designing the posters and trailers, running Q&As, and more. 

As MA Film Student Elysia Smith remarks: ‘This has been one of the most exciting educational modules I’ve taken throughout my academic career. Not only am I learning something entirely unique, I am also able to use my own learning to provide a platform for other creative students and help student filmmakers broadcast their work.’ 

Submission for the Festival opened back in December, when the festival’s page on FilmFreeway was once again launched inviting student filmmakers from all across the world to submit their shorts. Surpassing the previous year in terms of student film submissions, the festival received a total of 1495 films which were then divided up for each student to watch about 80 each to narrow it down to the final highest quality, innovative, exceptional films.  

Kieran Izquierdo says: ‘The whole project has forced me to re-evaluate what I’m capable off and pushed me out of my comfort zone to achieve great work as a collective unit.’  

Out of the 40 films that form the programme there are: 10 Fiction short films, 12 documentaries and 18 animated shorts, each with a 2 hour runtime.  

Across the three strands students films from 22 different countries are featured, these include: Taiwan, Spain, China, United Kingdom, Israel, France, Russia Federation, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Ukraine, Slovenia, Uzbekistan, United States, Iran, Kosovo, Brazil, Norway, Croatia, Romania, Austria and Germany. 

The full programme is available on the festival’s website (ljmumafilmfestival.org)  

Follow @ljmumasff on FB, Instagram and Twitter  

The films will be available for viewing from the 1st to the 8th of April.