IRIS PRIZE IS BACK IN PERSON, IN CARDIFF, 5 – 10 OCTOBER 2021

Iris Prize is honoured to welcome a group of diversely talented individuals who have excelled in their chosen fields as jury members, judging the films in Best British and the international Iris Prize categories. The chosen winners will then be revealed on the closing night of the festival.

Berwyn Rowlands, Festival Director, commented:
“You can tell a lot about a festival from looking at the jury, and this year is no exception. The 2021 jury includes filmmakers, some are old friends, others are new friends to Iris. The jury also includes actors, journalists and a cross section of the public who share Iris’ interest in LGBT+ stories. They have an important job to do - winning a prize at Iris can be a huge help for a film maker, do I need to mention our inaugural winner Dee Rees who went on to be Oscar nominated. However, I also know that each year our jury as well as our audience also get to see the best of the best as we share some amazing LGBT+ stories.”

INTERNATIONAL IRIS PRIZE JURY
An eight-strong panel of jury members will be watching 35 short films to choose the £30,000 prize winner. This year’s chair Rasheed Bailey is joined by acclaimed Swedish filmmaker and former Iris Prize nominee David Färdmar, along with last year’s Iris Prize winner from The Netherlands, Victoria Warmadamer (Short Calf Muscle), Best British winner 2020 Michael J Ferns (Better) and audience award winner Carla Fraser (Wings). The other jury members are Lewis Bayley, Industries Relationship Manager for Rose Bruford College (previously with Bournemouth Film School); Diva Magazine’s Roxy Bourdillon; and Queer East Film Festival programmer Yi Wang.

IRIS PRIZE BEST BRITISH SHORT SUPPORTED BY FILM4 JURY

With the Best British festival programme available online for free on All 4, UK-wide audiences will be able to view all the short films until 31 October. Film4 continues its support of the Best British Award for a second year and Tim Highsted, Film4’s Senior Editor of Acquired Feature Films, will chair the Best British Jury.  Joining Tim will be Alfie Dale, Best British winner 2019; Emma Goswell, broadcaster and producer, Virgin Radio Pride’s The Weekend Outing; Brighton-based filmmaker Jayne Rowlands; Jamie Weston, filmmaker/writer of Iris Audience Award winner, Wings; and Nicky Wild, Seasonal Strategy Manager/ Planning Team, Coop Respect.  

IRIS PRIZE BEST FEATURE AND PERFORMANCE AWARDS

In addition, there is a trio of awards relating to the feature films in the festival, honouring best male and female performances and best feature, and selecting the Best Feature. There is also a special youth jury prize for the best short.                                                                                                                      

Iris Prize Best Feature Award sponsored by Bad Wolf. 

Iris Prize Best Performance in a Male Role in a feature film sponsored by Attitude Magazine. 

Iris Prize Best Performance in a Female Role in a feature film sponsored by DIVA Magazine. 

Iris Prize Youth Jury Award Sponsored by Cardiff University for Best Short chosen by a jury of young people. 

Further information about Iris Prize juries including biographies: www.irisprize.org/jury/

Iris Prize is committed to becoming a world leader in sharing LGBT+ films to as wide an audience as possible, by encouraging diversity and understanding, and supporting future filmmaking.

Notes to Editors:

The main festival sponsors are: The Michael Bishop Foundation, Creative Wales, the BFI awarding funds from The National Lottery, Ffilm Cymru Wales, Film 4, University of South Wales, Cardiff University, Co-op Respect, Bad Wolf, Gorilla Group, Peccadillo Pictures, Pinewood Studios, Attitude Magazine, Diva Magazine and The Ministry of Sound.  The festival also works in partnership with BAFTA Cymru, Pride Cymru and Stonewall Cymru.         

The Iris Prize LGBT+ Film Festival is a six-day celebration of LGBT+ film which takes place annually in Cardiff, Wales, UK.  The 2021 festival will be our 15th edition and much has changed since the first 3-day festival in 2007 with 1,500 admissions. Today the flagship festival is almost a week-long, attracts 11,000 admissions, and the online offer is a month long with a UK on-line audience of 84,000.

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