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Pariah won the inaugural Iris Prize and Dee Rees went on to adapt it into an award-winning feature.
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BAFTA has recognised the Iris Prize as a qualifying festival for its awards - meaning that, from this year, all 15 nominated short films will be eligible to be entered automatically.
The Iris Prize, Cardiff’s International LGBT Film Prize, is celebrating 10 years since its inception this year.
Festival director Berwyn Rowlands said: “To be added to BAFTA’s festivals ‘A’ list is amazing news for Iris and the British filmmakers who are shortlisted annually. To be included in a list of prestigious film festivals like Cannes, Venice and Sundance is quite mind blowing. This recognition by BAFTA is simply the icing on the cake in this our 10th anniversary.”
Andrew Pierce, the Iris Prize chair, added: “This recognition from BAFTA confirms what we have known for a long time that Iris is the home of amazing film making talent. Iris has been shining a light on these important LGBT stories for almost a decade and with the support of BAFTA we can now share them with a new audience.
“We are always looking at new ideas to support the British film industry, and this will continue as we look forward to the next 10 years.”
The Iris Prize Best British Short Award offers the chance of winning a post-production package, worth £20,000, to help with the making of their next film. Previoius winners include Dee Rees and Daniel Ribeiro, who have since gone on to make award-winning features.
The Iris Prize celebrates iruns from October 12 to 16. More details from irisprize.org
