NSF UK @ Reading Biscuit Factory

We'll debut at "Biscuit Town" a cultural heaven twenty minutes one-stop ride from London Paddington.

Once the home of the largest biscuit factory in the entire world, now a three-screen cinema, bar, coffee shop, live performance space and community hub situated at the heart of Reading’s town centre.
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What’s all this about biscuits?
Joseph Huntley was selling biscuits to travelers on their way to Bath or London as early as 1822, and invented the biscuit tin to help prevent breakages on the journey. His small bakery eventually grew into Huntley & Palmers, the largest employer in Reading and by 1900 the world’s largest biscuit company.
Their vast factory earned Reading the nickname “Biscuit Town”.

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Strength in numbers

Watching your first or second short film with a real audience is a life-changing experience.
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NONDE Shorts Festival (NSF) is a new breed of festival, crafted for a new era of filmmakers. Born out of the principles of the NonDē movement, it is anchored in collaboration and driven by the power of hyper-local communities.

‍Right now, most filmmakers have to pay full fee and submit to lots of festivals just to land a few yeses. That gets expensive very fast. What if only the films that got selected to screen paid the full fee? This is what we want to explore.  

At NSF there is only a very small donation at submission to cover handling, and help the initiative. Then, only the films that are selected to screen pay the event contribution. The contribution goes straight into real costs: cinema hire, projection, running the event. Everything is done with a small and local operation. Costs are shared transparently with filmmakers and everything goes towards the event. Nothing is for profit.

These are our core principles: 

‍Turning rejection into participation: Non-selected donors receive perks as such: one week private online access (post event), live zoom participation to workshops that take place during the festival and the chance to win free tickets to attend the event.

‍Hyper-local communities: NonDe is also about sharing your film with your community before expanding to other regions. We are starting with the UK edition in the hopes more people will want to join the movement and have local,  regional, NSF editions. This allows filmmakers to actually be in the same room, watch each other’s films, and share learnings, harnessing the full power of micro-community collaboration.

‍Focus on shorts: Shorts are where most filmmakers start. I want the festival to have a strong peer to peer educational drive, leveraging the potential of open and honest post-mortem and filmmaking toolbox sharing sessions. A real exchange arena where people can learn, connect and leave feeling empowered, knowing they are not alone.

We're all about education: Every edition will hold a "How it's made" workshop where filmmakers will share the lessons, tools and contacts, that can help other filmmakers achieve good results.

‍Watch and comment every entry: Filmmakers are constantly frustrated with the fact festivals sometimes don’t watch their full film, just check the endless Reddit discussions about Vimeo stats. We will watch every film, even more than once if needed. We will also comment on how we felt watching it, from the perspective of an audience, not a filmmaker. This is a review for you, and it is not intended, neither formatted as a film lesson, as filmmakers, we know these can be annoying. To be able to do so, we’ll go against the economics and  cap submissions to to a number our tiny team can actually handle with TLC.

‍Audience: Unless you are in a festival that sells a badge and allows access to all the programmes, like SXSW, it’s hard to sell out short film blocks. This is made worse by the fact that many festivals leave up to the filmmakers to promote the selling of the tickets. In order to remove barriers for audiences and make it easier for them to attend, tickets are free, and each film receives a fair amount of tickets so they can bring crew, talent and guests.

Our fee structure and principles reinforces accessibility. Our format prioritizes education through honest and ethical exchanges of filmmaking wisdom and tools. Our main objective is to help filmmakers keep filmmaking.

Non-selected films receive: 
- A review (from an audience pov) of their film. - Online (post-festival) private access to films.
- Zoom access to the in-person workshops.
- A chance to win tickets free fscreening days.

Selected films receive: 
- Online (post-festival) private access to films.
- Access (lead) to Post-Mortem/Toolbox workshops.
- A fair amount of free tickets for crew and talent.

Max applications: 300.

We will be announcing the dates for the first edition of NSF, it will take place in the UK. Please save us on FilmFreeway.com so you don't miss the application window.

If you are interested in organizing an NSF in your region, please reach out and we can help you make it happen.

 1 - We put a cap on the amount of application so our team can watch all films.
2 - NSF is a not for profit event. All contributions are directly applied towards the event infra-structure and logistics.
3 - Pending director's approval of participation on the online private screening week (post-festival).
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