European Children’s Film Association is a network supporting cinemas, festivals, independent venues and other film professionals to distribute and exhibit films for children, young people and families. They host an extensive database of short films, features as well as distributor and sales agent details to make programming for your venue as easy as possible. Check out the network and find out how to become a member here.
Film Hub Wales’ extensive catalogue has over 1000 features and shorts with Welsh with connections, with access to screeners for BFI FAN Members.
Sidecard is an online database designed to record and track access materials made for films. Users can search and upload details of descriptive subtitles, audio description files and other materials related to cinema accessibility.
Lesfilcks’ mission is to bring lesbian & bisexual cinema to queer womxn across the globe – so they’ve created an LBTQ+ Film Database to catalogue all the LBT content made over the years!
British Council Film Directory is another extensive database of nearly 7000 films (shorts and features). They also track films that are in production so you can keep up with the latest releases.
Made possible through National Lottery funding, BFI Network Shorts are produced through BFI FAN Hubs (and Ffilm Cymru Wales) to provide short film and early feature development funding to producers, writers and directors of all ages. You can see BFI Network Shorts from Wales in the FHW catalogue here.

Film Festivals are a great way to keep up with new releases, discover talent and find something innovative to keep your audiences on their toes. These leading Short Films Festivals are always up to date with the shorts from across the world. Their past and current programmes are available on their websites, simply search through them to find films for your venue.

Show Me Shorts is a Short Film Festival based in Aotearoa New Zealand. They’ve complied an extensive list of international short film festivals, where you can see current and past catalogues films they’ve shown and awarded.

These online film platforms are a FREE and easy way to preview short films for your cinema’s programme, so you can curate the perfect selection for your audiences.

Exclusively for BFI FAN Members, the Film Hub Wales Preview Room allows you to watch the latest Indie titles from the Wales, the wider UK and the rest of the world to help you decide what to programme. If you’re not a BFI FAN Member – find your local hub and sign up here.
Short of the Week hosts a network of 2,000 short films across every genre from 50+ countries. They have become the preeminent voice in quality online film curation built on scouring the web to discover and promote the new wave of emerging filmmakers.
Film Shortage is another great website hosting short films, micro shorts and longer shorts across numerous genres, as well as trailers and interviews with talent.
Film London’s London Calling scheme ran until 2018 commissioning shorts including Balcony, Three Brothers and Riz Ahmed’s directorial debut Daytimer. You can watch all of these films and more in their online talent showcase.
BFI Player: See shorts and features, showing the best from the BFI, national and regional archives – including 120 years of Britain on film.
Premium Films: Created in 1998, Premium Films is a Paris-based sales company specialising in short films.

As well as helping to discover the latest releases, cultural criticism plays an important role in helping us think about what makes a great film, what challenges audiences and what could offer a fresh perspective on a familiar theme or narrative. These magazines, blogs and review sites are a great way to keep up to date with all of this and more from around the globe.

The following organisations may have a selections of shorts from time to time, please check their website offers.

Local Licensing and Certification

A resource from the ICO for film exhibitors wanting to screen films which haven’t been certified by the BBFC: A how-to guide to film classification for exhibitors.

What do I do if:

I’ve found a short film online / in one of your resources, that I think would be great for my venue, but there are no details on how to book?
If you’re interested in booking a film for your venue, but there are no details on how to book, simply google the name of the filmmaker and search for their email address / social media account. Alternatively, you can contact the website host and ask them if they can put you in touch directly

I’d like to programme a short film I’ve seen but it doesn’t have a certificate or rating?
It’s the responsibility of the filmmaker or film distributor to make sure a film is certified and as a venue, it’s your job to make sure this is all in place before showing it to public audiences. We know this isn’t always the case, and can often be costly. If the filmmaker doesn’t have the funds to certify their film, your venue can obtain permission to show it from your local council. More information is available via the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) and the ICO (Independent Cinema Office).

How do I find short films in a specific format I.e. DCP or DVD / Blu-Ray?
Most shorts will be delivered in a digital file format, which can be converted to DCP if you work with a venue capable of doing this. If you are a DVD only venue, you should be able to download the file and play it directly from your laptop. The filmmaker may be happy for you to burn a DVD – please check with them directly.

Researching and Programming Short Films

What do I do if:

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