The International Live Action Competition of 2024 take all the old clichés about the short film medium, grabs them by the scruff of the neck and takes them behind the back of the cinema for a good kicking. The short is not the sole domain of those practising before a ‘real film’. Neither is it is an exercise in style over substance. Great shorts pulsate with energy, with inventiveness and creativity often unbound by the restraints of commercialism. With both a insouciant wink and a bold disregard for convention, a short tells us as much about the world and ourselves in 10 minutes than many features can manage in 2 hours. This year’s competition mixes upcoming and provocative voices with more established names whose work proves that the short to feature paradigm doesn’t necessarily always flow in one direction. The films, of all genres, deal with subjects both timely and historical – love, death, war, motherhood, sex and everything else that makes the world go round. But all do so in a myriad of different ways as they showcase not only the power of cinema, but the genius of the medium of short films.