Something I have been pointing out for the past few years is the simple fact that African filmmaking is woefully under-represented in the mainstream of UK cinema going and indeed television viewing. If you look at 2011 there were a total of 558 films released in UK cinemas over the...

The world of short film and animation descended on Bristol last week and with it came the UK and world film industry - buyers, agents, producers - in search of the next Nick Park, Lynne Ramsay or Roy Andersson. For short film is where careers are forged and where new...

30 years ago today, on 7 June 1982, Britain's first media and communication centre opened its doors to the public. At a time when VHS was winning over betamax as the domestic recording technology du jour and "the web" was something spiders made, Bristol's Watershed "multi-media hub" as it was...

If a week is a long time in politics then a week at a film festival is an eternity where you not only travel across time and space but into the minds of a female victim of war, a confused second generation British-Egyptian teenager and a reluctant revolutionary. Taking in...

There is definitely something of a renaissance going on in the world of filmmaking. I don't say that because I read it in the media! I say it because I put together the International and British programmes of Bristol Encounters short film festival and this involves watching over 400 short...