Paper Trail is a top-down puzzle adventure that follows the adventures of Paige, an astrophysicist in the making. We meet her as she leaves home and her worried parents to pursue her dream. Here, players fold the world like origami in order to solve a series of challenging and fun levels. This is a story about creating your own path, metaphorically and literally! Developed by Newfangled Games, this captivating title won Best Game at our first-ever Games Lab in 2023. We caught up with Henry Hoffmann, a BAFTA-winning game designer and founder of the studio, to learn more about Paper Trail’s uniq ..read more

Today we’re celebrating Earth Day – an annual event dedicated to environmental protection. First started in 1970, this environmental movement annually mobilises over 1 billion people from over 190 countries towards undertaking positive action for our planet. We dig into the Aesthetica Film Library to share five thought-provoking films that explore our relationship with the Earth, from poetic animations on the bonds between people and animals to powerful documentaries on change-makers. Wrapped Time-lapse photography and CGI animation evocatively combine to show Mother Nature at wor ..read more

Queer East returns for its fifth year with a programme of spectacular films. Established in 2020, the festival was born out of desire to create an artistic space for bold, unconventional and forward-thinking queer narratives originating from East and Southeast Asia and its diasporic communities. Over the past four years, 350 films have been screened in 42 venues across 23 cities in the UK, Europe and beyond. Today, we are thrilled to offer a peek into this year’s programme with these five films, from an exhilarating, contemporary coming-of-age story to an archival treasure from 1974. The Last ..read more

Comedy can emerge from experiences humans go through every day, whether they are as mundane as the humdrum of a daily commute or as intense as the fresh wound of heartbreak. Even feelings of frustration and hurt can be fuel for fantastically funny narratives. This is shown in today’s selection of 5 comedy shorts from our Short Film Library. Kowalsky (2022) | Émile V. Schlesser Once a wealthy family, we meet the the Kowalskys as their immense fortune is gradually falling apart. When the only son comes begging his widowed mother for help, an ugly row escalates. Kowalsky is a ..read more

Great documentaries are driven by people and the stories that only they can share. It’s a privilege to gain such access into someone else’s world, one we shouldn’t take for granted. Films are opportunities to learn about new perspectives and expand our horizons beyond our own lived experiences. These five shorts pay tribute to personal stories. Wifi Rider (2020) | Roxy Rezvany Queer Palestinian teenager Shukri spends most of his days on the internet. Immersed in an online world where Western popstars preach self-love and acceptance, he is inspired and finally decides to escape from his lonely ..read more

Games have the power to whisk us away to new worlds. It’s an important aspect of interactive media and what pulls us back to beloved titles. Today, we are thrilled to share with you 5 brilliant indie projects from the #ASFF2023 official selection and our first-ever Games Lab. These games transport players to the wonderful islands and woodlands. The Journey (2020) | Austin Wolfe UK The Journey is an unnarrated VR story about the underwater route of a whale. Players are invited to engage with certain interactive elements within the experience, all the while being driven by game’s ..read more

People behind the camera shape the stories we see on screen. Diverse points of view enrich cinema. Today, we share with you women and non-binary directors who have screened at Aesthetica and gone on to make waves in the industry. Alice Seabright | Pregnant Pause (2016) Named Screen International: Star of Tomorrow in 2019, Alice Seabright’s career has transitioned from successful shorts to bigger projects. She wrote and directed for Sex Education (Seasons 2-3), and is the creator and writer of BBC’s Chloe. In 2016, her short film, Pregnant Paus ..read more

Yasmin Afifi is a London-based director/writer whose short Jellyfish and Lobster won the Best British Short Award at this year’s BAFTAs. Her films have screened at platforms including Aesthetica, London Film Festival, Tirana and Underwire. In her projects, she loves using the medium of comedy, magical realism and absurdism to explore taboo and dark subject matters. Afifi often inserts grounded characters into more conceptual worlds to explore stories with heart and relevance. We asked her about the BAFTA-winning Jellyfish and Lobster and touched on upcoming projects ASFF: Jellyfish and L ..read more

We’re proud to share with you these incredible filmmakers who have shared powerful and poignant projects at Aesthetica, such as Rose Glass, Tal Kantor, Sean Wang and Mitch Kalisa. Some are just beginning whilst others have already gone on to tell crucial stories & forge extraordinary careers. We can’t wait to see what’s next. Tal Kantor | Letter to a Pig Tal Kantor is an award-winning independent animation filmmaker & visual artist. Her style blends together a range of mediums, such as: animation, drawing, photography, video and painting. Letter to a Pig won Best A ..read more

Today we are thrilled to bring you a selection of hilarious comedies to keep you entertained. These are five brilliant shorts from our Film Library that find the humour in the absurd, from friendships with fauna to an inconvenient vortex. Fern | Johnny Kelly Here, we meet a woman who has just lost her husband. However, in the process, she finds friendship in a houseplant. An unlikely bond forms between flora and human, until it all starts to turn disastrously ugly. Tell Me Something I Don’t Know | Neal Suresh Mulani It is the day of protagonist Cary’s 25th birthday and he has brou ..read more