The HollyShorts film festival didn’t have to extend its reach to London – it’s been doing very nicely in its United States birthplace since it began in 2005. But Steven Adams, festival strategist and advisory board chair, says that doing so made perfect sense.
“It’s been clear for something like the past 15 years that the second biggest demographic at HollyShorts was British,” he said at Sunday’s closing evening of the three-day event, held at Vue West End, just off Leicester Square, which was also attended by HollyShorts co-founder and director, Theo Dumont.
Not only had British filmmakers been entering the Hollywood original in significant numbers, they had, Adams says, been winning awards too: “We started celebrating those filmmakers with parties here in London. And then we thought, let’s just step it up a bit. Let’s have a British edition”.
The first of those took place last year, and HollyShorts London has returned in 2025 to showcase nearly 80 short movies, selected to further its mission of celebrating “innovative storytelling and emerging talent on a global stage”.
The global dimension was very apparent from a gathering I joined at Lisle Street’s Imperial China restaurant prior to the evening’s screenings.
Dining there were members of the team behind The Secret Assistants, a shrewd and subtle study of unequal power relationships in the film industry, written, directed and co-produced by Katey Lee Carson.
A cosmopolitan bunch, several of them are based in Berlin, where the film was shot, while others live in Paris (where it was edited), London and other bits of Britain.
Like Adams, they expressed no doubt that London remains a pivotal location in the wide world of film-making, and not only because of Soho, the British industry’s historic central London hub.
Other parts of the capital, including outer boroughs, have seen new film and TV facilities open in recent years, for example in Enfield and Barking & Dagenham. A 2024 report commissioned by Hounslow Council found west London’s film and TV sector to be booming, post-pandemic. Meanwhile, in Camden, Yoo Capital has plans to build a new Kentish Town film quarter.
The Secret Assistants, whose lead roles were played by the excellent Camille Rutherford and one of Britain’s most distinguished actors, Richard Hope, was not among those to win a HollyShorts London award, but the competition was formidable. The grand prize went to British-German director Franz Böhm for Rock, Paper, Scissors, which tells a harrowing story of the war in Ukraine.
It was good to again be out in Chinatown and among the West End’s Christmas lights, seeing, hearing and feeling the capital’s creative sector retaining its international allure, despite challenges and hostilities from many directions. As far as Steven Adams is concerned, that will continue: “We will definitely be back next year.”
OnLondon.co.uk provides unique coverage of the capital’s politics, development and culture with no paywall and no ads. It is funded by subscribers to publisher and editor Dave Hill’s twice-weekly newsletter On London Extra at a cost of £5 a month or £50 a year. To receive it, become a paying subscriber to Dave’s Substack or follow any Support link on this site.