Pylon, BAFTA-Qualified Short by English Filmmaker Barnaby Blackburn

Barnaby Blackburn’s BAFTA Qualified PYLON explores the carelessness of young masculinity and its horrific consequences

Los Angeles, CA (October 22, 2024). A young boy and his sister wander through a field on a hazy summer’s day where they are confronted by a gang of older boys who force the child up an electricity pylon — with earth-shattering ramifications. Barnaby Blackburn’s devastating short British drama Pylon is a poignant exploration of fractious family relationships, the horrors siblings subject each other to, and the indelible marks they leave. The film was made with Ken Loach’s production company Sixteen Films and has qualified for the 2025 BAFTAs.

Logline: A field. A gang. A gun. A frightened boy. His brave sister. Their determined mother. And a towering steel obelisk overseeing it all.

Barnaby Blackburn is an award winning Writer and Director. At the age of 26 he won a BAFTA for writing promos for the BBC’s Winter Olympics coverage. In 2017, he shot his first short film and directorial debut, Wale. Described by The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw as an “intriguing Hitchcockian thriller”. It was shown at over 50 film festivals around the world. It is on the shortlist for the 91st Academy Awards and nominated for a BAFTA. His second short film is Dad Was. He describes as a eulogy for his father whilst he’s still alive, it is on the shortlist for a BAFTA in 2021. He is currently working on his feature debut Help Yourself, also produced by Sixteen Films.

Jack Thomas O’Brien has been working at Sixteen Films for the past eight (8) years. He now works as a producer at the company. His upcoming feature film On Falling produced through Sixteen Films is a co-production with Bro Cinema, Lisbon. It will be sold by Goodfellas, and is financed by BBC Film, Screen Scotland & the BFI, along with the ICA. On Falling had its world premiere at TIFF. It won the Silver Shell for Best Director in the main competition at San Sebastian. Within the two years he worked as associate producer on Ken Loach’s latest film The Old Oak. He’s in nomination for the Outstanding British Film BAFTA. Jack received an Executive Producer credit on Athina Tsangari’s forthcoming feature Harvest. Previous to that he took an associate producer credit on Cristian Carion’s My Son. It features James McAvoy & Claire Foy, and has produced a number of award winning short films.

Ed Speleers is an award-winning British actor. He recently starred in Netflix’s global success YOU and Star Trek: Picard for Paramount+. Ed will next star in Joe Stephenson’s Midas Man. Alongside Emily Watson, Eddie Marsan and Jacob Fortune-Lloyd. It releases on Amazon at the end of October. His portrayal of villain Stephen Bonnet is widely in film circulation. A Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe nominated series Outlander.

As well as Jimmy Kent in Downton Abbey. Other more recent credits include Wolf Hall, Andy Serkis’s Breathe and Lars Von Trier’s The House That Jack Built. In 2017 Ed teamed up with Barnaby Blackburn to form Dark Glass Films. Together they are producing the shorts Wale and Dad Was together before teaming up with Sixteen Films to produce Pylon.

This stunning short PYLON has qualified for the 2025 BAFTAs.

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