Iris Prize Best British on Channel 4 and All 4

2021 marks the second year of a three-year sponsorship agreement between Film4 and the Iris Prize LGBT+ Film Festival, the Cardiff-based annual celebration of LGBT+ film. Film4 is the title sponsor of the festival’s Best British Short film competition, acquiring broadcast and streaming rights to the 15 shortlisted films, which were free to view by a UK-wide audience for the first time in 2020, achieving half a million views on All4 and an additional half a million viewers on Channel 4 over the past year.

2021’s shortlisted films explore the breadth of British LGBT+ experience, with stories ranging from the dark depths of drug addiction and workplace bullying to the joyous highs of tender first love and releasing your inner drag king. Featuring diverse characters ranging from a transgender teenager to Mr Gay Wales, this year’s shorts highlight the wealth of talent working in short film in the UK. The selection includes Baba - only the second film in the Festival’s history to win both its main award the Iris Prize and the Best British Short award - and the two films highly commended by this year’s jury, Pop and Cwch Deilen, which was produced through Ffilm Cymru's BFI NETWORK Wales Beacons short film scheme.

Tim Highsted, Senior Editor, Acquired Feature Films for Film4, who chaired the jury for Best British Short, comments: “Our partnership with the Iris Festival continues to showcase the sheer diversity of talent we have in UK short filmmaking and its success on All 4 proves there is an audience wanting to watch unique stories from new talent. We are delighted to continue presenting these short films on All 4 to as wide an audience as possible.”

Berwyn Rowlands, Festival Director said: “We knew that working with Channel 4 and All 4 would be amazing, and we were looking at a game changer in how we could reach a new audience for the Iris Prize short films. I did start dreaming about audience numbers, but it soon became apparent that this was the gift that kept giving. Never in a million years did I ever think we would reach so many people, introducing an audience to new and exciting LGBT+ stories. I’m delighted for the film makers and grateful to the talented people at Channel 4 who took a chance with Iris. I’m speechless!” 

The 15 films shortlisted to compete for the 2021 Iris Prize Best British Short Supported by Film4 are:

• Baba, Sam Arbor and Adam Ali - Winner
• Cwch Deilen (Wales), Efa Blosse-Mason – Highly commended
• Pop. Margo Roe – Highly commended
• Acrimonious, directed by Olivia Emden
• Baby Boy, Greg Hall
• Birthday Boy, Leo Lebeau
• Dragged Up, Laura Jayne Tunbridge
• Factory Talk, Lucie Rachel & Chrissie Hyde
• From A to Q, Emmalie El Fadli
• Inertia, Mat Johns 
• Lesbian (Wales), Rosemary Baker
• S.A.M, Lloyd Eyre-Morgan & Neil David Ely
• Silver and Gold, Jack Pulford
• Split Sole, Barnaby Boulton
• Three Letters (Wales), Ian Smith