The Iris Prize, which is a weekend-long festival that takes place in Cardiff, Wales, is one of the more unusual festivals that takes place on the European calendar. There’s actually no other festival like it in the world. It offers an extremely attractive and generous prize – production support to the tune of £25,000 (read more). The winning filmmaker has to use this support to complete their film in time for it to be presented at the following year’s festival.
The festival closed on the 8th of October, and the winning film has been announced. Unsurprisingly (the film’s been winning prizes all over the world), the jury chose I DON’T WANT TO GO BACK ALONE by Daniel Ribeiro from Brazil.
Best UK short went to THE RED BIKE by Andrew Steggall.
After the festival’s inaugural year (2007) the organizers broadened the scope of films available (and added a few more prizes) to include feature films. It remains, however, very focussed on the short film, and is therefore one of the few festivals where the feature-length selections take a bit more of a back seat. The full list of winners can be seen here.