Novella Success Stories

One of the things that sets Novella apart from other film festivals is our high value cash prizes. We offer these because our main goal is to be a springboard for our winning filmmakers. We believe that their winnings should allow them to take the next step in their careers and continue to do what they love: make more films.

Last year, we awarded £12,000 worth of cash prizes to our 10 winning films. We caught up with a few of the filmmakers to see what that prize money had allowed them to do in the past 9 months.

“Winning Novella Film Festival provided crucial equipment and financial support for my next project, Uhuru, a documentary about Parkinson’s disease in Tanzania. The prize not only validated my work, but also empowered me to expand my creative vision into this meaningful and impactful subject. I also made some invaluable connections at the festival, from camera operators who I’ve now worked with on set, to executive producers who I’ve pitched projects to.”

– Olz McCoy, director of Disability Narrative winner ‘Passion, Purpose and Parkinson’s’

Behind the scenes images and stills from ‘Uhuru’

“Winning Novella was a real creative impact for me, as this has been my first serious try at the festival run. (…) The winnings from Novella have been very helpful to get my new project off the ground.
I’m currently in the process of shooting “Stockholm”, a spy-thriller about two agents from opposing sides trying to manage their affection for each other with their mission. It’s a vastly different film from my last project, where I’m serving as co-director, co-writer, producer and lead actor.”

– Lars Walther, director of Music Video winner ‘what we leave behind’

Production stills from ‘Stockholm’

“The cash prize from the Novella Film Festival has been very helpful indeed. We’ve put it together with other financial aids and were able to start a writers room with two writers from Cameroon and Nigeria and are now outlining the first season of a series based on the short film ‘Mångata’.”

– Maja Costa, director of Female Narrative winner “Mångata” 

Still from ‘Mångata’, last year’s Female Narrative winner

Other people told us that the cash prizes are going towards various future projects, some of which we hope to see in future editions of our festival!

It is so fantastic to hear from our previous winners and to see what a real difference the cash prizes have made and continue to make. Huge credit to these filmmakers for using their brilliant short films to fund the next step in their journey, we’re over the moon to have played a part in it.

Our raison d’être is to empower filmmakers who are telling new stories, and to amplify previously unheard voices in the film industry so that they can make it their own – our tangible prizes allow them to do just that.