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a photo of the iris prize awards ceremony featuring a person on stage talking to a crowded cinema. There are white light patterns projected on the ceiling.

Iris Prize announces jury members for this year’s International and Best British Shorts

Iris Prize is honoured to welcome a group of diversely talented individuals who have excelled in their chosen fields as jury members, judging the films in Best British and the international Iris Prize categories.

The chosen winners will then be revealed on the closing night of the festival. Berwyn Rowlands, Festival Director, commented: “You can tell a lot about a festival from looking at the jury, and this year is no exception. The 2021 jury includes filmmakers, some are old friends, others are new friends to Iris. The jury also includes actors, journalists and a cross section of the public who share Iris’ interest in LGBT+ stories. They have an important job to do - winning a prize at Iris can be a huge help for a film maker, do I need to mention our inaugural winner Dee Rees who went on to be Oscar nominated. However, I also know that each year our jury as well as our audience also get to see the best of the best as we share some amazing LGBT+ stories.”

International Iris Prize Jury

An eight-strong panel of jury members will be watching 35 short films to choose the £30,000 prize winner. This year’s chair Rasheed Bailey is joined by acclaimed Swedish filmmaker and former Iris Prize nominee David Färdmar, along with last year’s Iris Prize winner from The Netherlands, Victoria Warmadamer (Short Calf Muscle), Best British winner 2020 Michael J Ferns (Better) and audience award winner Carla Fraser (Wings). The other jury members are Lewis Bayley, Industries Relationship Manager for Rose Bruford College (previously with Bournemouth Film School); Diva Magazine’s Roxy Bourdillon; and Queer East Film Festival programmer Yi Wang.

portrait photos of the iris jury

Iris Prize Best British Short supported by Film4 jury 

With the Best British festival programme available online for free on All 4, UK-wide audiences will be able to view all the short films until 31 October. Film4 continues its support of the Best British Award for a second year and Tim Highsted, Film4’s Senior Editor of Acquired Feature Films, will chair the Best British Jury.  Joining Tim will be Alfie Dale, Best British winner 2019; Emma Goswell, broadcaster and producer, Virgin Radio Pride’s The Weekend Outing; Brighton-based filmmaker Jayne Rowlands; Jamie Weston, filmmaker/writer of Iris Audience Award winner, Wings; and Nicky Wild, Seasonal Strategy Manager/ Planning Team, Coop Respect.  

portrait photos of the iris jury

Iris Prize Best Feature and Performance Awards

In addition, there is a trio of awards relating to the feature films in the festival, honouring best male and female performances and best feature, and selecting the Best Feature. There is also a special youth jury prize for the best short.

  • Iris Prize Best Feature Award sponsored by Bad Wolf. 
  • Iris Prize Best Performance in a Male Role in a feature film sponsored by Attitude Magazine. 
  • Iris Prize Best Performance in a Female Role in a feature film sponsored by DIVA Magazine. 
  • Iris Prize Youth Jury Award Sponsored by Cardiff University for Best Short chosen by a jury of young people.