London Short Film Festival 2025: Six Must-See Films Screening Over the Coming Week
By Something CuratedOpening this weekend, 17th January, the London Short Film Festival (LSFF) returns for its 22nd edition to celebrate emerging filmmakers and the art of short filmmaking. The eclectic programme will run across London’s most iconic screens and venues, including the BFI Southbank, ICA, Curzon Soho, Rio Cinema, and Rich Mix, and a free 1960s Mobile Cinema Bus roaming around the city. This year’s festival theme, Spaces, will explore the creative, social, and political landscapes of the spaces we inhabit and the cost of their loss—from cinemas and social hubs to the elusive third spaces, those vital gathering spots that define our collective experience and foster community. Below, Something Curated highlights six films not to miss at LSFF 2025.
La Voix des Sirenes (2023) – Directed by Gianluigi Toccafondo
In the heart of the seabed, between rocks and coral, seaweed undulates, lulled by the muffled, humming sound of currents. Up there, on the surface of the water, something extraordinary has just appeared: a voice. Gianluigi Toccafondo’s La Voix des Sirenes is a mesmerising animation from Italy that transports viewers into a dreamlike world. The film’s fluid, painterly style is characteristic of Toccafondo’s work. In this 20-minute piece, the sirens’ voices weave through an abstract narrative that explores longing and the inescapable pull of desires.
Screening: 18 January 2025, 6 PM at Curzon Soho
She Stays (2024) – Directed by Marinthia Gutiérrez
Born in San Diego, CA and raised in Tijuana, Mexico, Marinthia Gutiérrez is a writer, director, and choreographer. Her short film, She Stays, is a poignant exploration of time, memory, and solitude. Set against the backdrop of a quiet Mexican town, the story follows a woman who chooses to remain behind as her loved ones move away, both physically and emotionally. Through intimate cinematography and sparse dialogue, Gutiérrez captures the quiet resilience and introspection of her protagonist, offering a powerful meditation on the choices we have to make.
Screening: 22 January 2025, 8.45 PM at BFI Southbank
Masterpiece Mommy (2024) – Directed by Dorothy Sing Zhang
Dorothy Sing Zhang’s Masterpiece Mommy is a thought-provoking film that delves into the complexities of motherhood. “My desire to write Masterpiece Mommy originated from my own experience of accompanying my mother to a mammogram appointment. I was moved and unsettled by the sight of her breast being compressed during the procedure; it felt strangely fantastical and fictional, yet we were facing something very real in the test results. It was an image that seemed to encompass something so complicated: our relationship, our future,” Zhang explains. The film’s nuanced script and compelling performances highlight the often-overlooked sacrifices and triumphs of mothers striving to retain their individuality.
Screening: 18 January 2025, 8.45 PM at BFI Southbank
Perfectly a Strangeness (2024) – Directed by Alison McAlpine
Canadian film director and writer Alison McAlpine’s Perfectly a Strangeness is a sensorial, cinematic exploration of what a story can be. In the dazzling incandescence of the Atacama Desert in Chile, three donkeys discover an abandoned astronomical observatory. The film, which premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, documents both their movements around the facility and their observation of the dramatic visuals when the telescope opens and begins to illuminate the night sky.
Screening: 24 January 2025, 6.30 PM at ICA Cinema
Journey Mercies (2023) – Directed by Tomisin Adepeju
Journey Mercies, a 2023 short film by London-based British-Nigerian filmmaker Tomisin Adepeju, delves into themes of cultural identity, loss, and the search for “home.” Drawing from his own experiences, Adepeju tells the story of Bade, a soon-to-retire a library cleaner. On his last day of work, Bade prepares to leave the UK and return to Nigeria, his homeland. Through the lens of Bade—reflecting on his time in England and the complex emotions surrounding his return to Africa—Journey Mercies poetically explores the nuances of belonging.
Screening: 21 January 2025, 8.40 PM at Genesis Cinema
Pirouette (2024) – Directed by Ann Oren
Ann Oren is a visual artist and filmmaker. By dissolving distinctions between plant, animal and human life, she asks what it is to be human in an ecosystem immersed in digital culture. A disintegration into a fluid consciousness, Pirouette follows a sound artist who records horse sounds using her own body, while a cellist on the street invades her imaginary. It is the psychedelic conclusion of the horse-foley trilogy: Passage (2020), Piaffe (2022), and Pirouette (2024). Questions of intimacy and identity continuously arise in Oren’s work through diverse audio-visual methods, probing themes like gender, fictosexuality, and interspecies relationships.
Screening: 22 January 2025, 8.45 PM at BFI Southbank
Feature image: Gianluigi Toccafondo, La Voix des Sirenes, 2023. Still. Courtesy of London Short Film Festival