A woman's psyche is haunted and fractured by the relentless demands of the predatory industry she sought to break into.

5 Mins

Directed by Natalie Lauren & Simon London

UK

How To Get Over Someone is a short that relies on poetry and visual metaphors to tell the story of a teenager and her first heartbreak.

5 mins

Directed by Eve Gabarre

UK

A film poem. A journey of re-memory to the evocative places of my childhood.
At first, a return after fifty years to explore traces of memory, and to bring them to consciousness; to recover a sense of safety, and to chart the routes once walked that linked those safe spaces.
But then a journey to the edges of that safety, to crossing points that once represented movement into spaces of trauma.

5 Mins

Peter Urpeth

UK

Matt, a musician, mournfully reflects on the loss of his partner, Jules, to a heroin overdose.

5 Mins

Directed By Chris Traficante

Australia

‘Come in. The water’s lovely. You really ought to learn to swim. I won’t let go of you.’ In this supershort animation, a woman encourages a young girl into the river for a swimming lesson.

2 Mins

Directed by Cally Trench

UK

A man and a woman cross paths while doing laundry, each stealing glances but exchanging few words. In their minds, the quiet between them fills with a rapid montage of imagined encounters—from instant chemistry to comedic disasters, heartfelt confessions to utterly bizarre twists. We see each version through both sets of eyes, revealing how differently two people can overthink the same moment. As the dryer stops and reality returns, they are faced with the decision to finally make a move.

5 Mins

Directed by Maurice Victor II, Shea Marelli

USA

A young investigator who goes out into the field chasing up leads after a string of murders.

5 Mins

Directed by Noah Duncan

Australia

Keane finds a box of his absent father’s negatives. He prints the images in a darkroom’s red glow. As he and his mother Diane look through distant exposures from the half-past, the prints expose a life that was always out of frame. Closure leads them back to the shoreline, where Keane reframes what remains.

6 Mins

Directed by Robert Ripley

UK

A young woman’s thoughtfully planned dinner date begins to collapse as her date’s unspoken anxieties quietly surface.

5 Mins

Directed by Liam Lau-Fernandez

UK

A Medical History is an animated visual elegy adapted from digital notes documented during the filmmaker’s mother’s final days in 2025–2026. Blending pixel art, nostalgic 1980s–90s recollections, and bold experimental colour palettes, the film serves as an intimate meditation on grief, bodily fragility, and maternal love.

7 Mins

Directed by Rob Ducky Elford

UK

Buried under late-night study stress, a burned-out student googles a quick fix for brain power. She discovers: playing chess can increase brain activity…

2 mins

Directed by Anthony Hong-Fu Wang

Taiwan

This music video is about memories, regrets and time.

3 Mins

Directed by Sviatlana Khrapava

Belarus

Megan Turner is done playing nice. Years of misogyny, humiliation, and workplace secrets have pushed her to breaking point, and her arrogant boss, Gavin Jerome, is the final straw. A master manipulator who has escaped accountability for years, Gavin may finally have met his match. Time to Go is a darkly comic thriller that follows Megan’s meticulously planned attempt to get rid of him for good. As detectives investigate, the story shifts between Megan’s sharp, fourth-wall-breaking narration and a reality where truth, fantasy, and guilt begin to blur.

16 mins

Directed by Thomas Elliott Griffiths

UK

A professional Hitman fighting his own demons tracks down an elusive Serial Killer with whom he may have more in common than expected.

16 Mins

Directed Seth Gill

UK

Set on New Year’s Eve, Elizabeth, an overworked intern at a long-forgotten government black site receives an other-worldly signal. It’s up to her, a cowardly general, the site’s near bankrupt financier and a plucky yet mysterious receptionist to respond. However, not everything goes to plan after ulterior motives are revealed and tension quickly rises.

15 Mins

Directed by James Griffiths

UK

From zero to hero, we follow the life of Nathen, whose life has been pushed around for too long. He soon encounters his alter ego who transforms into his hero and battles on his behalf in difficult situations. However, Nathen quickly discovers that a hero's journey can lead to complicated consequences.

15 Mins

Directed by Jassica Magaye

UK

Orisa, a queer refugee from Nigeria receives her refugee status in the UK and finally is able to move out of the lodging given to her by the Home Office. With the help of her lawyer she finds a new place to live and moves in with Alice, a queer singer-songwriter. Their stories entwine as we learn more about Orisa and her being persecuted and threatened by an anti-gay hate group in her home country of Nigeria, forcing her to flee to save her life, and Alice shares her upbringing and how her mum kicked her out of the house.

15 mins

Directed by Piera Van de Wiel, Katharina Benjamim

UK

Artist James Magee spent over forty years building installation in the West Texas desert, El Paso. Often working alone or with one assistant, Magee constructed four stone buildings, in the shape of an equidistant cross, containing his large steel-and-glass sculptures.

15 Mins

Directed by Quin Mathews

USA

After graduating, Grace is torn between her father's ruthless ambition and her aunt's idealistic activism, realizing that both could shape her future and the fate of their town.

15 mins

Directed Ana Iscru

UK

After a sex worker vanishes at work in the city, the man who loves her has his world turned upside down as he tries to save her. Or is she the one she needs rescued from?

16 Mins

Directed by Kyle Titterton

UK

When ten-year old Josie Johns met her doppelgänger, it kicked off a decade of intense and bitter rivalry. Now an adult, Josie is about to confront her double, settle some scores, and take back control of her identity once and for all.

13 mins

Directed Zak Harney

UK

Haunted by infertility and trapped in a strained marriage, a baker in her late 40s sees her world crumble when a celebratory cake commission exposes a devastating betrayal, forcing her to choose between the illusion of security and an uncertain future alone.

10 Mins

Hugo Coelho

Portugal

No One Wins A Nuclear War. The Price is Paid in Lives.

A cautionary tale. As nuclear war becomes imminent, two estranged lovers reunite and find a final moment of peace at the end of the world.

10 mins

Directed by Jack R H O’Sullivan

UK

New Paragraph

Pay As You Go is a dark, Kafka-esque comedy set in a parallel universe where everything is chargeable. From boiling a kettle to flushing the toilet, daily life is metered, itemised, and deducted in real time.

When a struggling tenant tries to escape his Pay-As-You-Go Life Tariff, a relentlessly cheerful Customer Support officer turns up for a routine “Life Utility Check-Up”. What follows is a painfully polite audit of his right to live affordably. Where loneliness, zero-hours contracts, and even heavy sighing come at a price. And then there’s a goldfish.

10 mins

Directed by Tom Diffenthal

UK

A ballerina and pianist meet at a prestigious classical music school in London.

10 mins

Directed by John Lewis James

UK

New Paragraph

Gloria, an Oriental Dance teacher, has spent her entire life hearing through only one ear. It was never a problem… until silence takes over completely. Diagnosed with profound bilateral hearing loss, she begins to lose not only sound, but also the pillars that supported her daily life: music, teaching, and confidence in her own philosophy of life.
Through a sensory approach—where sound appears, disappears, and fragments—the film follows Gloria as she faces an irreversible decision: whether or not to undergo a cochlear implant.

10 mins

Directed by Ruth Liliana Levin

Spain

Football Changes Everything.
Two women. Two lives. One story.

7 mins

Directed by Katie Harriman

UK

New Paragraph

New dad Oli crumbles under the pressure of driving his new born home.

7 Mins

Directed by Jamie Luke Milligan

UK

A couple, affectionately naming each other Love and Bug, test the limits of their love living with each other for fifteen months.

12 Mins

Directed by Barnabus Walsh

UK

New Paragraph

Famous superheroes take care of adult problems, but children also have their superheroes, always ready to help solve their dilemmas. Anonymous heroes may be closer than we think, and in this fun movie, they will be taken back

13 Mins

Directed by Rafael de Andrade

Brazil

A struggling young actor battles self-doubt, brutal rejection, and the chaos of chasing a dream—only to finally land his “big break”… or so he thinks. The Chronicles of the Struggling Actor is a sharp, funny, and painfully real glimpse into ambition, illusion, and what it truly means to “make it” in the film industry.

12 Mins

Directed Lyud Hristov

UK

TBC

12 mins

Directed by Alison Hargreaves

UK

A grimly fiendish Sunday league manager engages in an argument over the worth of winning and losing with the league’s weary referee, all whilst the manager’s squad of droogs set out to sabotage that morning’s match.

13 mins

Directed by George Najsarek

UK

Inside Byker Wall, Dani looks for her missing football and absent Father. What she finds is a dark family secret that will change everything.

13 mins

Directed by Nathan Glendinning

UK

A serial killer called the PENetrator (he kills people with his pens) records his next victim on his mobile phone as he stalks them on the nighttime streets of Greenwich.

2 Mins

Directed by Chris Harvey

UK

A young woman navigates the emotional shock waves of an unexpected confrontation.

7 Mins

Directed by Peter Hanson

USA

A teacher and his former student sit down for a lovely spot of cheesecake until a bomb enters the equation.

16 Mins

Directed by Zak Reay-Barry

UK

We don't want to sound like a festival of drunkards, but Romford Film Festival has always been a very social space, the bar is often the hub of the action. So this year we decided to make more of a thing of it. Our festival team never have time to talk to people and for filmmakers that are not belles of the ball, often find it difficult to be social. So we have squirreled away a period of time where you can talk to people, whether you're drinking our not.

Sandy and Taylor turn to a couple’s therapist to mend their strained relationship, particularly Taylor’s sharp tongue. As the session unfolds, the therapist suspects the “voice” behind Taylor’s outbursts may not be entirely in their head.

7 Mins

Directed by Scott Christopher McIntosh

UK

After a night of terrifying dreams, a man named Steve wakes up in shock. In his nightmares he repeatedly witnesses a woman in mortal danger. But what he experiences are not dreams—they are symptoms.

22 Mins

Directed by Giovanni Pedde

UK

UNREST follows Jack, as he sits down for breakfast with his Mum one Sunday morning. During the meal, Jack's mum attempts to reconnect with her distant son, but soon finds out that in her absence, Jack has gone down a dark path that will almost certainly end in violence.

8 mins

Directed by Jacob Vickers

UK

A down-on-his luck gig economy courier has his morality tested when he finds the door to a swanky apartment has been left open.

9 Mins

Directed by Henry Valo

UK

WOW! follows sisters Chloe and Maggie as they set off on a fun-filled summer day trip from Romford to the seaside at Southend-on-Sea. From bustling amusement arcades and thrilling fairground rides to fish and chips by the sea, ice creams, window shopping and a visit to the Sea Life Centre, the day is packed with laughter and unforgettable memories. But amongst the carefree fun, a seemingly insignificant encounter with a stranger collecting a bottle of seawater hints that not everything is as ordinary as it appears. As the sun begins to set, Maggie witnesses something so extraordinary that it changes the entire day in an instant, leaving her with only one word to say... "WOW!"

9 Mins

Directed by Steve Barnett

UK

An expectant father and a woman haunted by her fear of driving
spark an unexpected connection while waiting to be called in for
their driving test.

9 Mins

Directed by Amadeus Redha

United Kingdom

Aaron, bound to his duty of looking after his abusive father, takes a desperate and unconventional risk to break free.

9 Mins

Directed by Andrew Charles Burrell

UK

Sam, an actor, and Kate, an artist, walk across the city toward an important event, reflecting on moments from their relationship along the way.

25 Mins

Directed by John P. Arnold

UK

After a middle-aged father falls mysteriously into a coma that transports him to an idealised version of his past, his daughter must do all things necessary to rescue him from an eternal trap.

15 Mins

Directed by Daniel Howard-Baker

UK

When Fox’s "LA Bar" is hit with a compulsory purchase order, a cornerstone of Caribbean life in 90's East London is threatened. As the city begins to forget, the community remembers. In defiance and longing, a last dance ignites—one that will be remembered for the ages.

17 Mins

Directed by Hayden Mclean

UK

Sandra is a worn-out daughter doing her best to care for mother Bev who is living with dementia. When she finally gets a place in a care home Sandra learns that healing comes from a little help, a favourite meal and a new sense of purpose.

8 Mins

Dected by Christie Arnold

UK

The lives of hungover partygoers, cheating lovers, and two desperate gangsters unfold inside one apartment building, portraying how routine, denial, and fear keep them trapped in cycles they’re too comfortable to escape.

9 Mins

Directed by Ayk Simonyan

UK

Twelve-year-old Xiao Ai seems to be the only one affected by the death of an elderly neighbor whom everyone called "Crazy Granny". In the abandoned apartment of the deceased, Xiao Ai begins to form a connection with her neighbor and uncover her past.



25 Mins

Directed by Xia Fan

China/UK

Before the world knew her as a legend, Marilyn Monroe endured a childhood marked by trauma and a career shaped by relentless pressures. Even so, she rose to become an icon, a respected actress, and a determined independent producer. As she confronts her past and wrestles with what it means to be enough, her time-traveling companion faces his own demons. He is tempted to rewrite history, even if it risks unraveling everything.

22 Mins

Directed by Remi Gangarossa

USA

A deeply personal insight into how one man survived a childhood of abuse and thrived as an adult by holding onto, rather than letting of, his anger.

10 Mins

Directed Chris Eyre

Australia

This film introduces audiences to the sport of greyhound racing, exploring its history, its present-day reality, and its uncertain future. Through an observational look at a contemporary race meeting, it captures what a day at the track means for those who live and work within the industry. As public attitudes shift and stadiums continue to close, the film examines how greyhound racing has become increasingly driven by online betting and consumerism. By bringing together voices from across the sport, the film reveals a tradition in transition, asking what greyhound racing still means to the people and to the animals at its core.

10 Mins

Directed by Christiaan Mitcalfe

UK

In a world where death grants a final choice, one person to share your last moments, Denzel, facing his imminent end, seeks out Denise, a figure absent from his life for a decade but forever etched in his heart. Drawn to the ethereal Veilwood, a place revealed only to those on death's doorstep, Denzel reunites with Denise, hoping to find peace and resolution before he dies.

16 Mins

Directed Anita Amarachi

UK

Ann is so tormented by self-loathing that she has manifested it into a separate presence - the youthful Netty - and she is being increasingly side-lined at work. When she gets the opportunity for a promotion, she seeks solitude to submit her application. Netty finds her and derides her efforts, but Ann finally comes out fighting.

10 Mins

Directed by Kat Rollinson

UK

Jack and Olivia are two people bound by a past neither can escape, but as their private reckoning twists toward its final act, morality starts to blur and the truth becomes whatever is left behind.

10 mins

Directed by Aaran McKenzie

UK

After an accident lands a bitter young man in hospital, he's forced to share a room with a dying eccentric whose obsession with his view out the window begins to reveal unexpected truths - about connection, loss and the stories we leave behind.



11 Mins

Directed by Richard Eades

UK

With their lives on the line, two sex workers must blend in at a village hall bingo night to avoid the pursuit of a dangerous police officer who isn't far behind.

11 Mins

Directed by Joshua Francisco Mitchell

UK

A devoted mother, desperate to fulfill her and her husband's American promise for their son, enacts a tragic plan to secure his future—forcing her family into an explosive confrontation with guilt, sacrifice, and betrayal.

12

12 Mins

Directed by Jason Hyun Kim

UK

An elderly man's life is turned upside down when he discovers he is to be transformed into a high-street coffee shop.

11 mins

Directed by Laura Spini, Laurence Brook

UK

olie de Grandeur follows a psychiatrist overseeing an experimental memory erasure programme designed to rehabilitate violent offenders. Through fragmented chapters and clinical observation, the film documents the treatment of a man whose past crimes are systematically removed from his mind. As memories disappear, so do guilt, accountability, and moral consequence. Told primarily through the psychiatrist’s controlled narration, the film offers no redemption or resolution, instead confronting the ethical implications of curing violence by dismantling the very structures that define responsibility.



31 Mins

Directed by Naveed Shahid Mir

UK

After two very full days it's time to award the movies that have struck a chord with our audiences. This short and informal awards event will celebrate the filmmakers and their teams that have created masterpieces.

With 94 films showing obviously not everyone is going to walk away with an award, but as the saying goes "it's not the winning, it's the taking part", so selection is just as important as an award. And like last year we put the power of the end result in the hands of the audience, the judges stop at selections for nominations, it's what the audience thinks that will determine the end result.

Voting details will be available to all fulll festival pass holders and the mechanism for voting will be explained during the festival.

It's time to be social again with our second mingle until midnight. This is the last chance for filmmakers and audience members to mix and mingle with cast and crew of the films they've spent the weekend watching. This is all about connection, reconnection and future enterprises that hopefully many will share.

When a foreign woman meets her fiancé's affluent British family for an engagement dinner at an upscale restaurant, obligated pleasantries quickly descend into psychological warfare.

12 mins

Directed by David Bartkiewicz

UK

When Cleo and Jade’s date turns sour, they’re left questioning; ‘is the problem the male gaze or the way they’ve been conditioned to react?’
Game Over looks at how it feels to be a lesbian couple constantly sexualised and threatened by men.

13 Mins

Directed by Cleo Samoles-Little

UK

Serial killer Ted Ramirez terrorises a couple on a dark creepy night.

29 mins

Directed by Kieran Johnston

UK

A young boy spends the afternoon alone.

12 Mins

Directed by Jiyong Dong

China

When teenage Katie groomed to work for a local Brighton drug dealer is ordered to murder a rival she doesn’t follow through with it and goes on the run, finding safety with her estranged ex-con father.

But when the gang track her down she is faced with a stark choice to either let her father step up and face his demons for her, or to run and make a fresh start.

21 Mins

Directed by Leo De Haan

UK

On the 21-05-2011 two newbies to the world of ghost hunting visited The Clink Prison Museum - London. This short film shows some of their experiences from that night.

13 mins

Directed by Tony Wiseman

UK

Ben once had dreams, spark, and a reflection that smiled back at him. Now, years later, he’s stuck- trapped in a life that feels smaller than he remembers, married to someone who no longer understands him, and haunted by the sense that somewhere along the way, he lost himself.

15 Mins

Directed by Paul David

UK

When her husband Kay is declared missing in a distant planetary war zone, military spouse Penelope must confront the authorities, the silence they leave behind, and her own unresolved grief.

20 Mins

Directed by Güni Koçak, Daisy Clarke

UK

An emotional short story of a millennial mother and her teenage daughter struggling with unspoken pressures and a widening communication gap.

13 mins

Directed by Anjali Ghosh

Singapore

What starts as harmless fun with their phones becomes an unstoppable countdown to destruction when the algorithm predicts a couple's relationship's demise with terrifying precision.

12 mins

Directed by Yoann Zak

United Kingdom

A love triangle between a mother, her son and a microwave ends in bittersweet separation.

14 mins

Directed by Patrick Fitzgerald

UK

A soon-to-be bereaved teenager must learn to conquer her emotions and control her own narrative as she experiences an unexpected change of identity.

14 Mins

Directed by Pedro M de Oliveira

UK

We all know people who got drunk and lost a phone. But What happens when a drunk has accidentally uploaded his mind to his phone and lost his body?

5 mins

Directed by Chris Harvey

UK

From Glasgow Without Love unfolds over a single night. Elvis, a Nigerian immigrant in Glasgow, is quietly facing deportation after losing his right to live and work in the UK. Seeking refuge in an empty church, he delays returning home to Molly, his pregnant Scottish partner, where unspoken truths are waiting.

14 mins

Directed by Albrin Junior

Nigeria/UK

When Tommy wakes up late for work, he faces a relentless cascade of mishaps that transform his simple morning routine into a comedy of errors. From broken alarm clocks to wardrobe malfunctions, every attempt to get ready becomes a new disaster. A squeaky rubber chicken toy haunts his every move while his phone battery counts down to zero, adding urgency to his mounting frustrations.

22 mins

Directed By Steve Barnett

UK

Beate, 43, lives with her husband Uwe and their eight-year-old son Benjamin in a small town. On the surface, they appear to be an ordinary family—yet they are still reeling from the tragic bus accident that claimed the life of their eldest daughter, twelve-year-old Jana. The loss continues to weigh heavily on Beate, piercing through her daily life like a wound that refuses to heal.

21 Mins

Directed by Harald Schwarzenbacher

Austria

A sleep-deprived mother moves through life on autopilot, postponing herself one day at a time—until a quiet moment forces her to see what she’s been missing, and how little time it takes to begin again.

15 Mins

Directed by Abid Shamim

UK

The film follows a group of bereaved fathers who meet each month at Derian House Children’s Hospice in Chorley, Lancashire. Through open conversation, humour and shared experience, the men reveal how friendship and connection help them navigate loss and support one another through the most difficult moments of their lives.

18 Mins

Directed by Paul Woodward

UK

TBC

15 Mins

Directed by George Poupart

UK

n a household where marriage functions as a transaction, the men who govern it appear in porcine forms, embodying appetite and inherited authority. Expected to submit, Sophilia turns toward Juana, a girl suddenly appeared. Their intimacy becomes a fragile space in which another way of being can be imagined.

19 Mins

Directed by Han Luo

UK

Two inept criminals, Cammy and Coops, are tasked with burying their first body in the woods but find themselves at loggerheads when they realise that they’ve only brought one spade.

Deli Meat is a satirical exploration of toxic masculinity and how imposter syndrome can affect anyone, including criminals.

When the killing is easy but the digging is hard.

15 Mins

Directed by Brick

UK

TThe Long Road follows Josh, a man in his early thirties, as he tries to make it through what should be a normal day. Josh has Long Covid, and despite his best efforts is struggling to make it through his daily activities. He has a long journey to recovery ahead, but as the sun comes up on another day we see that he is not defeated.

22 Mins

Directed by Lisa Geurts

UK

Asha is a young man with the ability to feel and resonate other people's emotions through physical contact. Turned into a recluse by the burden of his abilities, he is constantly plagued with the predicament of whether he should strip people of their negative emotions but consequently bare the burden himself or does he turn a blind eye, and leave people to their suffering

17 Mins

Directed by Pete Key

UK

It's time to be social again with our second mingle until midnight. This is the last chance for filmmakers and audience members to mix and mingle with cast and crew of the films they've spent the weekend watching. This is all about connection, reconnection and future enterprises that hopefully many will share.