At Short of the Week, our mission has always been to champion emerging filmmakers and spotlight voices that deserve to be seen and heard. With the launch of Pride Shorts, our new global short film competition, we’re creating a dedicated space to celebrate the complexity, creativity, and diversity of LGBTQ+ storytelling.

More than just a showcase of exceptional filmmaking, Pride Shorts is designed to amplify perspectives that challenge, inspire, and reflect the richness of queer experience – past, present, and future. 

For those ready to submit, entries are now open. Read more about the competition below.

Awards & Prizes

Winner

• Short of the Week Feature (2.2m subscribers)
• Free Winners Merch

Finalists/Runners-up (x3)

• Inclusion in Short of the Week’s Pride Month showcase on Shortverse
• Free Finalists Merch

Competition Jury

The winner of our Pride Shorts competition will be selected by a handpicked jury, including a number of filmmakers previously featured on Short of the Week:

• Charlie Tidmas – a BIFA and Grierson-longlisted writer and director whose work in film and television focuses on intersectional masculinities and trans identity – Full Bio / SotW Films
• Carlen May-Mann – a Brooklyn-based writer and director of bold, humanistic horror, drama, and comedy films – Full Bio / SotW Films

Competition Timeline

Pride Shorts will run over a six-week submission period:

• Opens: Tuesday, April 6
• Closes: Thursday, May 21

The winner will be announced by the end of May and be featured on Short of the Week in early June, to coincide with Pride Month.

What we’re looking for

We are seeking short films that explore LGBTQ+ themes, identities, and experiences in all their forms. Above all, we are looking for films that feel authentic and considered – work that showcases a filmmaker with something to say and the ability to get their message across.

There are no restrictions on genre or style – narrative, documentary, animation, experimental, and hybrid works are all welcome. What matters most is a distinct voice and a clear sense of perspective.

Eligibility

• Films must be 40 minutes or less
• Films must be ready to go online in June 2026
• Films can’t already be featured on SotW
• Open to filmmakers from anywhere in the world
• Selected films must be available for online screening if chosen
• All rights secured including music.

SUBMIT YOUR FILM

Industry Partnerships

SotW is also inviting organisations interested in collaborating or sponsoring the competition to get in touch at partnerships@shortoftheweek.com

***

With Pride Shorts, Short of the Week continues its commitment to supporting filmmakers and fostering a more inclusive film community – one where a wider range of stories can be shared, celebrated, and discovered.

There are certain filmmakers who leave an immediate impression the first time you encounter their work. For me, Nienke Deutz is one such director. With a striking aesthetic that combines hand-built miniature sets with 2D animation printed on transparent sheets, Deutz employs a distinctive visual language to tell equally distinctive – yet widely relatable – stories about everyday human experience, particularly the transformations that accompany ageing.

In her earlier film, Bloeistraat 11, Deutz explored the transition of puberty and the ways it tests the bond between two girls. In her follow-up, The Miracle, she shifts her focus to middle age, following a single woman, Irma, on a luxurious holiday where her surroundings serve as a constant reminder of what she perceives herself to be “missing.”

While this situation – being a childless, single, middle-aged woman on holiday – is quite specific, Deutz draws out a broader universality through themes of dislocation, confusion, and loneliness. These emotions emerge from the experience of inhabiting a space in which one feels fundamentally out of place. The resort Irma visits is clearly designed for families or couples, and although this occasionally wears her down, the film ultimately moves toward a message of self-acceptance and compassion.

From a personal perspective, I find this particularly resonant. Despite being in a markedly different position – having been in a long-term relationship for over two decades and being a father of two – the film’s central insight remains accessible. It encourages a kind of attentiveness to one’s own life, an acceptance of what is, rather than a preoccupation with what might have been. There is an almost meditative quality to The Miracle, one that invites reflection and gratitude rather than regret or melancholy. That, to me, is a rare and valuable quality in a film – especially one that is also as visually engaging and thoughtfully crafted as Deutz’s work.

We’re subscribers to the theory that much of what we lionize as “creativity” in storytelling isn’t about inventing wholly new forms, but about the alchemy of combining familiar elements in unexpected ways. Dustie Carter’s pilot short for a proposed indie series, Heck to Death, is a sharp demonstration of that idea—its pleasures coming less from reinvention than from the novelty of what it chooses to fuse. The spark of its premise—the immediate recognition of what’s being mashed together—lands quickly and persuasively, creating an eagerness to see where the team might take it next.

Heck to Death is, at heart, a love letter to the DIY hardcore music scene. Carter, who once played in a small band, recalls “…nights packed into basements where identity, chaos, and community collided.” That connection gives the film an essential grounding and helps infuse the film with a necessary authenticity.

But the film isn’t interested in documenting the scene with anthropological rigor. Authenticity is abundant, but realism isn’t the goal. Instead, Heck to Death maps a familiar YA zero-to-hero arc onto this setting: a protagonist seeking belonging, an attractive love interest to impress, a rival to overcome. Tonally, it lands somewhere between The O.C. and a shonen sports anime, with the rhythms and emotional beats of both.

That may not sound especially radical, but exploring new subcultures via the safety of narrative familiarity works. Newness often emerges through reframing. Swap surfers for street racers and Point Break becomes The Fast and the Furious; here, the well-worn coming-of-age template is refracted through hardcore’s abrasive, communal energy. The result is a productive tension: the universal anxieties of youth—love, identity, status—colliding with a subculture that codes as aggressive, even dangerous. It’s a juxtaposition the film smartly leans into, and one that promises deeper exploration if the project expands.

Unsurprisingly, the film’s greatest strength is its energy. The climactic performance sequence is where Carter’s connection to the scene comes fully alive. A mix of locked-off compositions and kinetic handheld camerawork pop, creating a sense of manic, barely-controlled chaos, while the decision to cast performers who can actually play does wonders for the sense of immersion in the scene.

The film isn’t without its rough edges. Like its fictional band, Heck to Death is a scrappy, low-budget effort. The opening scene suffers from muddled audio, making it difficult to parse, and the protagonist remains somewhat generic. Performances vary, though Carter shows a strong instinct for casting in key roles, particularly the rival and love interest. Still, pilots operate by a slightly different metric than standalone shorts. The question becomes less about perfection and more about potential: do you want to spend more time in this world? Legitimate quibbles aside, the answer for Heck to Death is “hell yeah!”

The film arrives online today after a healthy festival run, highlighted by a prize at Colorado’s SeriesFest. For those tracking the still-emerging space of independent TV pilots, the festival remains its most vital showcase, even as larger players like Tribeca, SXSW, and Sundance have built out their own parallel tracks. Carter will return to SeriesFest next month with a new project, Octarine, but continues to develop Heck to Death. Here’s hoping that a robust reception online for this pilot short film can help create a groundswell of energy and support for that endeavor. 

As a lover of storytelling, it is sometimes valuable to be reminded of the enduring power of a well-told yarn. For director Jonathan Pickett (Chicken Stories), that reminder came when he met (then) 75-year-old cowboy singer Johnny Bencomo – a man with an 18-string guitar named Gracie, a movie-star quality and the story of a highly unusual gig – the inspiration for his short film, Deep in My Heart is a Song.

Given that Pickett’s two previous short films were documentaries, it was a natural inclination for him to consider capturing Bencomo on screen with a similar approach. However, after hearing the singer recount the story of this unique and memorable performance, Pickett instead proposed adapting it into a scripted work, with Bencomo playing himself.

“After we finished reading it together, I looked up and saw tears in his big eyes”

“He’d never acted before,” Pickett notes of his lead actor and co-writer, adding that he had “never [even] been on a film set.” Nevertheless, after receiving the script by mail, Bencomo – by Pickett’s account – “took a leap,” prompting the filmmaker to travel to Tombstone, Arizona, where the singer resides, just a few days later. “After we finished reading it together, I looked up and saw tears in his big eyes. He said, ‘My friend, what a tear-jerker we’ve got on our hands,’” Pickett recalls.

With his recent short films rooted in nonfiction, Pickett admits he was “excited by the challenge of bringing that skillset to scripted filmmaking,” ultimately finding that the differences in process were not as pronounced as one might expect. His guiding principle? “Working to create conditions under which magic might be able to unfold: train your camera on fascinating people, frame them in beautiful places, and work with talented and committed collaborators.”

Lindsay Burdge stars as a daughter trying to give her dying mother one last taste of Country music

There is a timeless quality to Deep in My Heart is a Song, enhanced by the textured aesthetic of shooting on Super 16mm, which lends the film a dreamlike, almost ethereal atmosphere. Yet, despite this slightly fantastical feel, the short remains grounded in its performances and emotional core. Its central trio – Bencomo, Lindsay Burdge (star of S/W favourite Fill Your Heart with French Fries) and Annalee Jefferies – bringing a warmth and sincerity that anchor the film.

It is ultimately this human element that proves most compelling. The film could easily veer into something sombre or even morbid, yet instead it feels life-affirming – marked by generosity and compassion. At its core, it is a film about people, a point Pickett himself underscores when reflecting on his intentions:

“Having a professional creative career seems to have all these formalized definitions and metrics of success, but the true value and fulfillment come from the moments of ineffable connection that the art facilitates. That’s what makes filmmaking worth it to me, and I’m so thankful to Johnny for teaching me that.”