Laurence Boyce

Simon Ellis is a shining example of a filmmaker who loves and understands the medium of shorts. Someone I now count as a friend and colleague, I admire much in his large body of work. But there's something about Soft that still sticks with me. The note perfect performances. The brilliant use of the form that tells us so much with so much economy. The constant tension that is expertly ramped up. It's note perfect and still for me, in the pantheon of great British films whether feature of short.

John Smith is another director from whose body or work I could easily take numerous films for this list - The Girl Chewing Gum or Om are a few of my favourites. But I like word play and Associations just speaks to me on another level. In a world in which much video art/experimental filmmaking (such a nebulous and unknowable term, but I'll use it here) came with po-faces and a sense of the own importance, Smith was funny and playful without losing any sense of pathos or poignancy. I still adore this film and it never fails to make me laugh.

I can hear the groans now, the 'Oh it's just a silly film with Nazis and Dinosaurs'. To which I reply "That's exactly what makes it a good film and now kindly get to f**k." I think that art and cinema should be a broad church. That we should be allowed to enjoy and champion a large range of different types of cinema. There are a list of great genre short films that I adore, many that are often 'ghettoised' into some sort of 'genre only' space. Kung Fury was just a breath of fresh air. Premiering at Directors Fortnight, it made loving genre fun. It's almost perfect takedown of 80s genre tropes - replete with stupid jokes and ultra violence that would be gross if it wasn't so silly - just struck a chord with many And it worked as a short - Yes, they wanted to make a feature (which has been made and now is stuck in legal limbo) but it still feels a full and perfectly formed short. Endlessly quotable and joyous, especially for me as an 80s kid.

It's sometime hard to choose a short for this list from someone who is now an established 'feature auteur'  as it gives rise to the theory that shorts are only worthy of investigating as part of a filmmaker's career before they make 'proper' films. But Incident By A Bank is such a precise and wonderful affair it was hard for me not to include it. Based on a real life incident experienced by Östlund  , the film utilises the medium of the short by highlighting how grand and melodramatic events can be boiled down into small intimate moments. Clever and insightful but resolutely human.

Animation does not figure much in my list, a sign of how live action became more dominant for me. But Harvie Krumpet has always stayed with me, with Elliot's brand of humanity and humour never failing. All together now: "God is better than football, God is better than beer...."

Surreal and intensely political, Copy Shop is still such an amazing cinematic slap in the face. While channeling the spirit of classic silent cinema there's also a prescient use of VFX and such an undercurrent of satire that it still holds up today

As a British person, Night Mail has all the wisps of nostalgia that appeals to all of us a certain generation. The documentary following the over night mail service has the imagery - the steam trains, the countryside - all narrated by the WH Auden poem that can't help stir a bucolic UK that - to be fair - probably only existed in the minds of many But it's just a great documentary, full stop and does the wonderful thing of turning the mundane into the ethereal.

I love Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan et al. And this blew my mind when I was young and it still does

A cliche maybe, but La Jetée is still so influential and stands up as some of the best sci-fi ever made.