Quick Dips: Experimental Shorts 2

Eight short films from the UK and France that explore our environment and experiment with the elements.

Hag-Stone

A woman laid bare on the rocks. Little different from the rock, suggests the medical scanner. Distressed by loss of sight, hearing, balance, skin structure, she peers out to a sea she was taught to swim in. Comfort blanket and hearing trumpet can help her cope with ageing. But can such surrealist objects defend her against only having four teeth left (four!) and all that implies about self-esteem? Ultimately, art does help with that. She is trying to give everything to the camera, the mic. Still splashing. St(ill) alive.

Kate Clayton | UK | 2025 | N/C | 5 mins 30 secs

She is too human

For years, she held on to what she believed was the right way to care for her patients, despite the hospital’s dehumanization until the night that was one too many. 

A journey through solitude, suffering, and silence: the poignant testimony of a nurse. 

Aurélie Gurdal | UK | 2023 | N/C | 5 mins 59 secs

Mitherspher

The film shows ethereal experiences above and below the water simultaneously. Words wind around seaweed, fish and fragments of Mitherspher, as she heals the Ocean. Inspiration for creating this goddess originated from the Orcadian myth Mither of the Sea.

Leonie Siri MacMillan | UK | 2025 | N/C | 6 mins 16 secs

In Knots

Through raw phone footage captured along Shetland's rugged coastline, In Knots traces the relationship growing between a restless figure and the water - two entities bound by their inability to find stillness.

Jeanne Hamilton | UK | 2025 | N/C | 2 mins 33 secs

Flame

A retelling of a classic Polish lullaby changed to reflect the issues of societal pressure on women and their stagnation in toxic relationships. The animation is done with original experimental technique developed by the creator of the short, using pyrography to present the story with each frame burned into the wood.

Elzbieta Muskietorz | UK | 2025 | N/C | 2 mins 33 secs

Chasing Whales

Chasing whales is an experimental short documentary film following the journey of the French filmmaker La Fille Renne on the trail of cetaceans, reflecting on our relation to them and the evolution of their hunt in Northern Europe.

La Fille Renne | France | 2025 | N/C | 5 mins 26 secs

Arboreal

Exploring everyday acts of labour at a pioneering tree nursery and rewilding estate in the Highlands of Scotland, Arboreal entangles multispecies world-making processes in regenerating Scotland’s endangered and uniquely biodiverse forest ecosystem.

Jenny Holt | UK | 2025 | N/C | 14 mins

Call to the Channel

Tidal currents, sound waves, marine life, sea floors and sea edges - 'Call to the Channel' poetically immerses imaginations, reflections and senses into the depths. Judith Anketell invited artists of diverse disciplines to re-envision human-centric perceptions of the English Channel - 'La Manche' - moving from the Channel as resource; to the Channel as an elemental entity connected to the global Ocean. Made in collaboration with filmmaker Clare Unsworth, this meditative film offers the artists’ spoken word contributions, inviting gentle shifts in how we perceive and listen to the natural world.

Judith Anketell | UK | 2025 | N/C | 11 mins 39 secs