Paul Bruce, Director of Edinburgh Short Film Festival on the 2025 Edition (interview)

Paul Bruce speaks about the upcoming edition of the Edinburgh Short Film Festival, sharing tips for filmmakers, and details of a masterclass with Stanley Kubrick’s producer, Jan Harlan

The Edinburgh Short Film Festival returns to the Filmhouse for its 15th edition, and a lineup packed with highly anticipated guests and acclaimed short films. 

Launching Friday, 7th November, the festival’s highlights include a two-hour masterclass with Stanley Kubrick’s long time producer, Jan Harlan, and the man behind classics such as The Shining, among others. 

Moreover, this year’s programme features a curated collection of shorts from Shortcutz Amsterdam, European and Scottish Short Nights, a special showcase from the Vilnius Short Film Festival, and seven In Competition Nights. 

We caught up with Paul Bruce, the festival’s director since its first ever edition, to learn more about how the project began, some tips for young filmmakers, and an overview from this year’s programme!

Hello Paul, this is already the 15th edition of the Festival, can you tell us more about how you started it?

We were a bunch of filmmakers and at the time there wasn’t a way to show your short films. We used to work for the Leith Festival, but it wasn’t like a proper cinema, and there weren’t many screen spaces in general.

So we moved to Edinburgh, and we started our festival at The Cameo, so a lot of Edinburgh filmmakers could screen their work there. Gradually, it attracted UK and European interest, and it expanded over the years. 

How has the festival changed over the years?

In many different ways. At the start we had to deliver a bunch of DVDs for the selection committee, luckily we don’t have to do that anymore. 

We got a lot more international collaboration than we used to have! This year we got about 2200 entries, it took us about seven months to create the programme. 

The whole point is to have a strong programme, I think it’s part of the attraction. Opposed to commercial films, the filmmakers are completely free to make the film, so when you go to see a short film programme there is more expression, they don’t have to hold themselves back.

And this year is the first time that you’re only based at the Filmhouse, right?

Yes. We’ve been based at the Filmhouse before in the past. It’s great to be back, it looks great! 

What can we expect from the programme?

This year we are presenting a wide range of international shorts, Scottish and UK shorts, and a lot of them have won or were nominated for awards at international film festivals including Cannes, Venice, Locarno, Berlinale. 

We have shorts from Myanmar, Taiwan, Colombia, it’s a broad range of films, and there is drama, experimental animation, documentaries, dance films, and comedy. We also got Jan Harlan’s masterclass, Stanley Kubrick’s producer! He wants to give something back to the filmmakers community, share some insights on Kubrick’s films and what he thought was important in filmmaking. 

He will cover topics like the importance of the opening shot, the use of music, working with actors, these sort of aspects, and he will do that with examples from Kubrick’s films. 

Do you have any advice for filmmakers that would like to apply with their short for next year?

We open the selections again in January, films are up to 25 minutes, make sure your film is polished before you send it. If you’re not sure how to start with filmmaking, come to the festival, speak with us and with the filmmakers, we have networking events after every single screening, we will be happy to answer your questions!

The Edinburgh Short Film Festival: from Friday, 7th November 2025, at the Filmhouse.