Osprey Short Film Awards
Now accepting entries for 2023
No submission fees until July 31st
What are the Ospreys?
Each year at the festival we celebrate local film making by showing a selection of short films.
A panel of judges select the very best of these films and reward the talented film makers the prestigious Osprey awards.
At the screening the audience also vote for their favourite film to win the Audience Award.
We are now accepting entries for the 2023 Festival which we hope will be able to take place early next year.
“I feel it's very important for those of us who are established in films to make sure that we put ourselves out to encourage the next link in the chain. It's not difficult to put oneself out and it was greatly enjoyable watching their films and sharing their pleasure at the awards.”
How To Enter
To be considered for the awards a film must:
- have a significant connection to Cumbria
- be no more than 10 minutes long
- have been completed after January 1st 2022
We use FilmFreeway.com to accept entries. Please click through
to our listing on FilmFreeway for full details on how to enter.
FilmFreeway offers free HD online screeners, unlimited video storage, digital press kits, and more.
2020 Official Selection
Judges Award Winner
Midair
Louis-Jack (4 mins)
In scaling rocks by the hardest routes, boulderers seek to escape gravity in an endless quest to achieve weightlessness and momentarily leave the world behind.
Midair is a bouldering film featuring some of the UK's strongest climbers in iconic Lake District locations, set to a pumping techno soundtrack.
Audience Award Winner
Rambler Man
Angus Imrie (11 mins 22 secs)
With his son suffering through a mental health crisis, a loving father (played by Tim Bentinck, best known for his long-running role as David Archer)
wants to help. By taking his boy on a journey through the Lake District, he's able to reach his son and become an everyday hero.
Rambler Man is a short film that explores mental health, masculinity and our emotional connections with the great outdoors.
Rambler Man is the screen directing debut for Angus Imrie. He is mostly known as an actor for his roles in The Crown, The Kid Who Would Be King (2019), Industry (2020) and Fleabag (2019). He is the voice of Josh Archer in the BBC radio series The Archers.
Other Shortlisted Films
A Perfect Day For Piracy
Pete Winterbottom (5 mins 26 secs)
A bouldering short film based at St Bees. Captain Pugwash goes looking for treasure and finds some hidden gems.
I Think I Know My Own Mind
Ronald Amanze, Jilly Jarman & Sarah Wallcook (5 mins 4 secs)
F-Rated
This film shares personalised findings from research into the use of everyday technology among older adults living both with and without dementia.
The lyrics have been created to prompt conversation and reflection between older people, particularly those living with dementia, their friends, family,
neighbours, and supporters. People can then apply these findings to help make technological choices that they think would work best in situations that may be changing.
#HELLP!
M J Poynton (5 mins 30 secs)
A man who is a little more than obsessed with his phone finds himself at a loss when one day he wakes up and it has disappeared! Furthermore his keys have disappeared and he is locked inside of his house. How will he upload pictures of his breakfast to Instagram now?
Sing To Encounter Me
Laurence Campbell (8 mins 55 secs)
Sing to Encounter Me is an experimental film shot on and around The Duddon Estuary in Cumbria.
Whilst the project deals with themes of isolation and shifting time, it also documents and celebrates the Duddon Inshore Rescue organisation
and the difficulties of the job that they undertake.
On the one hand, the film is a ghost story, glimpsing into the past through the dreamlike heathlands of Askam-in-Furness.
On the other, it examines the natural details of the ever changing sands, and how a place can be defined by extreme tidal waters.
This film was developed as part of the Unpublished Tour arts and literature event.
Tender Buttons
Kitty Handley (8 mins 21 secs)
F-Rated
Through a series of both improvised and scripted moments, Tender Buttons explores both the tenderness of female friendship
as well as the delicate relationship between music and memory.
Shot by an all female crew, this latest short film follows best friends, Frances and Ros, as they wait around
one day for the location of a free party nearby.
The Show
Richard Rowden (9 mins 18 secs)
A dramedy about a couple who head out into the wilderness for a weekend away, only for their relationship to come
to a head when Sam admits that he can't carry on anymore. They put on a show for each other to hide they’re true feelings of
hatred for each other.
Touching The Water
Hannah Maia, Maia Media (7 mins)
F-Rated
Mhairi Helme's poetic reflection of a 100 mile run around the English Lake District inspired by the landscape, the people she meets and her fell running hero, Joss Naylor.
War Torn
Luke Bain & Alexander Dodds (1 mins 3 secs)
A war veteran who once served his country with pride is abandoned by his public left to rot away on the streets as
he battles not only the elements but an illness of the mind.
Filmmakers Network
As well as showcasing great short films we also hope the Ospreys will provide opportunities for film makers to meet each other and possibly collaborate on future projects.
We have created a group on Facebook called the Osprey Filmmakers Network which we invite you to join if you have entered or film in the past
of are thinking of doing so in the future, or perhaps you'd like to get involved in some other way.
Osprey Filmmakers Network: http://bit.ly/OspreysNet
Partners & Sponsors
The Osprey Short Film Awards at Keswick Film Festival proudly accepts entries via FilmFreeway.com,
the world's best online submission platform. FilmFreeway offers free HD online screeners, unlimited video storage,
digital press kits, and more.
If you'd like to sponsor the Osprey Short Film Awards or supply any prizes then please contact us.