Reel 01 — Who We Are
Two people. One projector's worth of obsession.
50% Film is a short cinema label based in London. We find short films we love, give them a proper home, and make sure they get seen the way they were meant to be — beginning to end, no skipping, no scrubbing.
The problem was never the films. It was everything that happened after.
Short films are the most honest format in cinema. No padding, no filler, no second act that exists only to fill a runtime. Every frame has to earn its place. They are where directors take their biggest risks, and where new voices tend to speak loudest.
But brilliant shorts win at a festival, live on a hard drive, and then quietly disappear. We started 50% Film to close that gap. To platform short work with the care it deserves, credit the people who made it, and keep it findable long after the festival lights go down.
We curate by hand. Every film is watched in full, more than once, by an actual person. If we take your film, you keep one hundred percent ownership. We ask only for a non-exclusive licence to host and promote it, and we take it down the moment you ask.
Free to submit. No entry fees, no tiers, no "priority review" upsell. Any genre, any runtime, any country. We care about the quality of the vision, not the category it fits into. Accepted films are credited in full and listed on Letterboxd.
The website is the start, not the destination. The long-term plan is simple and slightly ambitious: a touring anthology of short films, on real screens, in real cinemas. Half the runtime of a feature. All of the feeling.
If you make short films, or just love watching them, you are early. Stick around.