Talk:Encounters Film Festival

COI for citation improvements

I have made citation improvements to this article (adding primary sources for existing claims and replacing an unreliable IMDb citation). All edits support existing text and introduce no new claims. I am the Executive Director of Encounters Film Festival. DaveTaylorMatthews (talk) 14:28, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

Requested move 6 April 2026

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jeffrey34555 (talk) 17:17, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

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Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival → Encounters Film Festival – Please place your rationale for the proposed move here. DaveTaylorMatthews (talk) 14:44, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

The festival has not used the name "Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival" for around a decade. Current branding, official website (encounters.film), and all recent press coverage use "Encounters Film Festival". You can see the history of the festival at https://archive.encounters.film/ with the most recent use of "Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival" being in 2016.

Sources:

• https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdr6335z255o
• https://www.encounters.film
• https://www.shortfilmconference.com/encounters-film-festival/
• https://www.europeanfilmacademy.org/about/european-film-academy-short-film-network/
• https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/sep/12/hollywood-has-everthing-to-do-with-the-terrible-state-of-the-world-charlie-kaufman-on-artificial-intelligence-eternal-sunshine-and-toothache

Declaring a conflict of interest: I am the Executive Director of Encounters Film Festival. DaveTaylorMatthews (talk) 14:44, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

• Comment: Actually, looking at the selected sources listed above (emphasising the somewhat WP:INDEPENDENT ones), The Guardian uses "Encounters film festival" (lowercase). The BBC article only uses the proposed term in one place. And www.shortfilmconference.com (discounting the WP:HEADLINE and the fact that the source doesn't appear to be independent) seems to use "Encounters" by itself or "Encounters Festival". (The Wikipedia article also just uses "Encounters" by itself in multiple places.) The official website also seems to exclusively use "Encounters", by itself, except in a logo and a footer that talks about "Encounters Festivals". This could indicate Encounters (film festival) or Encounters film festival. The European Film Academy link is not an article – it contains only a headline and a link to the official website, and it also doesn't appear independent. Of course, that's just looking at the sources suggested by the nominator, which may involve some cherry-picking. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 16:59, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

  Thank you for looking at this promptly. To clarify the naming: the festival's official registered name and how it refers to itself in formal context is "Encounters Film Festival" — capitalised. The website domain is encounters.film and the festival's own communications consistently use "Encounters Film Festival" as the full name. "Encounters" alone is used informally as a shorthand, in the same way that people refer to Cannes, Sundance or Toronto. The Guardian's use of lowercase is I believe standard house style for festival names rather than using the full "Film Festival" suffix. I'd suggest "Encounters Film Festival" (capitalised) is the most accurate target title. Declared COI again: I am the Executive Director. DaveTaylorMatthews (talk) 21:39, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

  Wikipedia does not necessarily give precedence to WP:OFFICIAL sources. We prefer to try to identify the WP:COMMONNAME from WP:INDEPENDENT reliable sources. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 01:51, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

  Fair enough, I wasn't aware of the WP:COMMONNAME convention. Screen Daily, a primary trade source for the festival industry, uses "Encounters Film Festival" in its coverage including: https://www.screendaily.com/news/encounters-film-festival-to-return-in-2025-with-new-executive-director/5200042.article. A search of their site reveals that they were referring to it as "Encounters Film Festival" as early as 2012, when technically we still used the longer formal name, so I'd suggest this represents the common name used by independent industry sources. Not sure if this deep link will work but hopefully you'll see what I mean: https://www.screendaily.com/searchresults?qkeyword=%22encounters%20film%20festival%22&PageSize=10&parametrics=&cmd=ReplaceKeyword&val=%22encounters%20film%20festival%22

  In my experience people simply refer to the festival as "Encounters" in spoken language, but that is because they just drop the "Film Festival" suffix, just like they do with Sundance (Film Festival), Cannes (Film Festival) and Edinburgh (International FIlm Festival).

  I'm happy to defer to editorial judgement on capitalisation if "Encounters Film Festival" is accepted as the target title. Declared COI: I am the Executive Director of Encounters. DaveTaylorMatthews (talk) 11:22, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

  Support: The proposed form is WP:CONCISE and follows the prevailing convention on Wikipedia for similar article titles, as well as matching official usage. There are lots and lots of articles with a title of the form "Name Film Festival". "Encounters (film festival) seemed worth considering to me, but there are very few (only 18) titles like that on Wikipedia. "Encounters film festival" also seemed worth considering, but there are practically no titles like that on Wikipedia (I found only one, and submitted an RM about it), and it has previously been commented that The Guardian can be somewhat idiosyncratic. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 17:16, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"UK's longest-running international short film festival" - citation needed tag

I am pretty sure this claim is accurate having researched it many times over the years, but of course it's hard to prove 100% since we're looking to find something that pre-dates it, and which therefore likely does not exist. Kinofilm Manchester also started in 1995 but only celebrated its 20th anniversary as a short film festival in 2025 (https://filmfreeway.com/KinofilmManchesterInternationalShortFilmFestival), placing its short film origins in 2006 rather than 1995. The other older film festivals are places like Edinburgh International FF and Cambridge FF which have always focused on feature films. However I have been unable to find a third-party source using this exact phrase and would welcome an independent editor either sourcing or suggesting alternative wording. Declared COI: I am the Executive Director of Encounters. DaveTaylorMatthews (talk) 11:16, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

I did not find contrary evidence in List of short film festivals#Europe. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 17:32, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

Is there some way we can move this one forwards @BarrelProof? DaveTaylorMatthews (talk) 18:37, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia prefers not to be the source of original observations, even if they are true. It would be best if some off-Wikipedia source could be identified that directly says this. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 20:39, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

Proposed expansion of Notable alumni section — COI declaration

I am the Executive Director of Encounters Film Festival and have a conflict of interest in editing this article . I would like to request that an independent editor review and implement them if they consider them appropriate.

Proposed change

I would like to expand the Notable Alumni section to document specific award wins at Encounters and subsequent major career achievements by our alumni, particularly Academy Award connections that are well documented in independent sources.

Existing text:

Encounters has screened early short films by filmmakers who have gone on to significant careers in international cinema. Notable competition alumni include Denis Villeneuve, Lynne Ramsay, Rungano Nyoni, Julia Ducournau, Charlotte Wells, Ruben Östlund, Joachim Trier, Molly Manning-Walker, and Radu Jude.

New expanded addition:

Several Encounters alumni have gone on to win or be nominated for Academy Awards. Andrea Arnold won the Grand Prix at Encounters in 2001 for Dog. She subsequently won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 2005 for Wasp, and has since directed features including Fish Tank, Wuthering Heights, and American Honey.

Grant Orchard won the Best of British Animation award at Encounters in 2011 for A Morning Stroll. The film was subsequently nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and won the BAFTA Award for Best Short Animation in 2012.

Peter Baynton won the Children's Animation Jury award at Encounters in 2010 for Save Our Bacon, and the Music Video Award in 2015 for Cookie Tin Banjo. He later co-directed The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

Claude Barras won the International Newcomer Award in Animation at Encounters in 2006 for The Genie in a Tin of Ravioli. He later directed My Life as a Courgette, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 89th Academy Awards in 2017.

Chris Overton and Rachel Shenton's The Silent Child won the Encounters Deaf Shorts Award in 2017. The film subsequently won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film at the 90th Academy Awards in 2018.

Jeremy Comte won the Brief Grand Prix at Encounters in 2018 for Fauve, qualifying the film for the 91st Academy Awards in 2019, where it was subsequently nominated for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.

Philip Barantini received a Special Mention at Encounters in 2019 for Boiling Point, a short film which he later developed into a BAFTA-nominated feature of the same name (2021). His Netflix limited series Adolescence (2025) became one of the most-watched English language series in Netflix history and won six Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Limited Series and Outstanding Directing.

Thank you for considering this! DaveTaylorMatthews (talk) 10:25, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

DaveTaylorMatthews (talk) 10:34, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

Not done: The notable alumni section is not encyclopedic as-is. It is more of promotional content for the festival and reads like its website. I would actually suggest to cut that section in its entirety and if any of the information therein is worthy of inclusion to include it under the history section for whatever the timeframe it is relevant for. CNMall41 (talk) 20:15, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

I see what you mean. It wasn't my intention for this to read as promotional material, but rather to factually record that Encounters plays a significant role in discovering early stage artists and filmmakers. I can see why this would come across promotionally but it's a hard thing to set out. Are there established norms for this sort of thing? DaveTaylorMatthews (talk) 20:54, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

A film festival doesn't have alumni, so I deleted the section. - Walter Still not in the Epstein Files Ego 12:27, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

There is no such thing as a film festival student. Past winners and films in competition, yes. But "alumni" is not used for events like festivals. Οἶδα (talk) 17:56, 4 June 2026 (UTC)