Shorts Ephemeral: The LSFF Exhibition at Rich Mix

The London Short Film Festival (LSFF) has shown the best, strangest, and the most interesting short films to London audiences for over 20 years, and returns this year from 20-29 Jan. But what’s in the archive?

LSFF as it exists today started life in 1994 as the Halloween Society, an irregular film night co-founded by school friends Philip Ilson and Tim Harding – later becoming the Halloween Short Film Festival in 2004 and finally the London Short Film Festival in 2008.

Dabbling in myriad artforms, happenings, club nights and live performances alongside the moving image has long been LSFF’s MO; as the landscape of alternative film exhibition has shifted and evolved over the intervening decades, LSFF has moved with the times whilst remaining outside of the box.

In this exclusive exhibition, we present for the first time posters, flyers, photographs and videos that make up the history of LSFF, the tangible remains of many raucous and radical screenings. Spot now-famous filmmakers in the early brochures and programmes and see our always-weird and wonderful trailers from the past 19 years of LSFF.

This free exhibition kicks off Rich Mix’s schedule of exhibitions, talks and events for the LSFF and runs from Thursday 12 – Monday 30 January.