RPeaPod: Spring is coming 🌷

It’s March. The days are getting lighter, the air is getting (just slightly..) warmer, daffodils are out, mini eggs are weirdly expensive, film festivals are back to back, and its international women’s day this weekend. What a time to be in your inbox!

Oscars Oscars Oscars 🏆

A huge congratulations to the incredible women who won at the Oscars this weekend, and an even bigger congratulations for those who survived through the ITV X coverage (yikes, what a panel).

Women won in all three shorts categories! I'm Not a Robot by Victoria Warmerdam and Trent took away the Best Live Action Short award, The Only Girl in the Orchestra by Molly O’Brien and Lisa Remington won Best Documentary Short and last but no means least In the Shadow of the Cypress by Shirin Sohani and Hossein Molayemi.

Haven’t seen them? We’ve got you - you can watch I’m Not a Robot on youtube for free here and The Only Girl in the Orchestra is available on Netflix. We couldn’t find In the Shadow of the Cypress online yet, but when we do it will be in the newsletter.

Interesting read for you is a little study Stephen Follows did recently on the Oscars, How do women fare in gender-neutral Oscar categories? An interesting subject considering how many more ‘Best Female Director’ award categories we’re seeing at festivals recently, is it a celebration of inclusivity or are we pigeonholing and ignoring the real issue outside of acting categories? Read it here.

RP: Evolve....Evolved! 🖊

Our first Evolve workshop day was a huge success, our cohort of writers brought a selection of diverse script ideas and new concepts to the session, and it was fascinating to learn more about each person’s journey, challenges and questions about the industry. We hosted three workshops, drank copious cups of tea and consumed a high number of pastries.

A key takeaway was the desire amongst our writers for more information on festival strategies, promoting the short once it is finished and how to actually work with producers and what the split of workload is. Well since last year, we've actually been developing an Evolve approach tailored specifically for aspiring producers, and we're excited to potentially launch it this year alongside more workshops across the UK.

Sign up for the waiting list for the next Evolve day, where you can tick which locations you’d be interested in attending [and will get an early discount too!]

Women X will not be funny without your shorts 💔

The next deadline for Women X submissions is fast approaching on March 8th. We pop in different deadlines to manage capacity and allow the time to review and pin point where we may be short. Speaking of which - our dear friends at Women Over Fifty Film Festival (WOFFF) highlighted last week that they’ve not received a lot of comedies...and well we haven’t either! Whether this is a shortfall in production or comedies last year, or maybe we haven’t received them we don’t know. So if you have a funny short that meets our criteria, send it over to us and to WOFFF - because we refuse to believe that only men are funny this year.

Additionally, our script competition is also open - we welcome scripts under 15 pages this year. Whether it's a short drama, comedy, or thriller, or pleeeease a horror, we have loved incorporating the script competition for the past couple of years and can’t wait to welcome writers to Darlington again.

A huuuuge thank you to everyone who submitted pitches last month for our collaborative events space at the festival. We're currently reviewing the emails and will reach out to those who got in touch soon, due to the volume of enquiries we will now be closing this.

March Film Festivals 📆

BFI Flare Festival 🏳️‍🌈

There’s so many amazing films being showed at Flare this year so check out their full programme for more info, but a few we’re looking forward to is the feature Dreams In Nightmares from Shatara Michelle Ford and three of their short film programmes Day Dreamers, To Your Souls and Sporty Spice! Caris has popped some of her most anticipated on a Letterboxd list here too.

Glasgow Short Film Festival 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Then across the border we’re excited for another great year at Glasgow, some of the shorts we’re most excited about are Seeking by Ciara Flint, Paternal Advice by Lisa Clarkson, In The Room by Paul Barrie, Soul by Eilidh Loan, Roll Down The Window by Lipa Hussain, Alumni filmmaker Eubha Akilade’s new short Baby and the fun named Hot Young Geek Seeks Blood-Sucking Freak by Heath Virgoe - produced by Women X Alumni Niamh West.

They’re also got two great programmes Our Stolen City from Gaza Film Unit and Visible Cinema: ESC Curates Deaf Shorts we can’t wait to see. More information available here.

Alumni News ✨

Eve Grant won Best Writer for Heavy at BFI Future Film Festival as well as Best New Talent, Heavy will also be screening at Glasgow Short Film Festival.

Gobstopper by Jo Lane is now available on Omeleto, with a casual 8,000 views in just 2 days.

Sleepyhead will be screening at ReelAbilities New York

Spoor has been nominated for a whopping six awards at the first Essex International Film Festival.

Winter Song by Kate Graham won Best Short Film at Seville Film Festival.

Debbie Howard won Best Director at the Soho London Independent Film Festival for SAFE.

Travelling Home by Juliet Klottrup has been nominated for the Osprey Short Film Award at Keswick Film Festival screening this weekend.

Community Bits & Bobs 🎬

• _{BIFA are looking for mentors for their Springboard programme.}

• _{Shiny Awards Showcase Uncommon London are open for submissions until April 28th.}

• _{Manchester Film Festival industry passes are on sale, check out their programme here. Including some of our fave features I Love You Forever, Last Swim and Restless.}

• _{Crowdfunding Spotlight: Headscarf - A woman reclaiming confidence and sensuality during chemo}

• _{Crowdfunding Spotlight: Queer and Confused - a raucous short film set in 1980s London.}

• _{Exit 6 Film Festival: Submissions Open}

• _{Women Over Fifty Film Festival: Submissions Open}

• _{Sunderland Shorts Film Festival: Submissions Open [FINAL DEADLINE MARCH 14TH - Grab a 30% discount on us with SSFF2025WX]}

We’re off now to pop some hot cross buns in the toaster,

Team RP xo