Festival celebrating Filmmaking without dialogue. The weirder the better. We don’t want the usual short film guff: calling cards, extended jokes, middle-class commentary on the working class etc etc blah blah gag sigh. Just good work. Make good art as Neil Gaiman said. Do it! Do it and send it to us. And we’ll show it.

Location: To be confirmed (due to COVID-19)

Festival: To be confirmed (due to COVID-19)

Why No Dialogue?

No Dialogue will make dialogue better.

In the film industry they say dialogue is king so lets make no dialogue the queen. In some stories the king is a good king, a noble king, a thoughtful king but in many stories he is brash, predictable, or an unnecessary tyrant. Lets look at the Queen: she can be strong, subtle, creative, original. Without the loudness and the obvious in the foreground we are able to see and hear the beauty in the background. We notice, listen, interact and read. We explore our senses more deeply, nuances and details become important, doors are unlocked, worlds are revealed.

Don’t get us wrong, we love dialogue. Talkies are good. It’s good to talk. Except when it’s not. Constant talking can make us lazy. Think of No Dialogue as the exercise yard for your audio/visual communication skills. A small island of freedom for those strange and beautiful beasts to run free before returning to the shackles of convention.
Limitation breeds creativity and we want to celebrate experimentation within a clear boundary: no dialogue. This blog will be the platform for truly creative filmmakers and a welcome retreat from the guff. We will screen inspiring films that transport you from the everyday. We’ll be looking for work that demands us to look more carefully, listen more intently and feel more profoundly.

No Dialogue is a platform for filmmakers and artists demonstrating originality and flair in:
– Cinematography
– Sound Design
– Music
– Production design
– Performance

No foreground character dialogue.
No voice over.
No subtitles.
No music video.
Films produced from archive footage are unlikely to be selected.
Films with only music as a soundtrack are unlikely to be selected.