NFTS Student Film Ether Selected For La Cinéf At Cannes 2025

A Historic First For Students And Fifth Consecutive Year Of Recognition.

The National Film and Television School (NFTS) is thrilled to announce that Ether, a student-made short film, has been officially selected for the 28th edition of La Cinéf at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival!

The live-action drama offers a powerful 15-minute insight into the complexities of young relationships, delving into themes of consent, manipulation and power dynamics. Set against the backdrop of the English countryside and filmed in Buckinghamshire over four days in October 2024, the film follows a young couple whose idyllic relationship unravels during a day trip as questions of power and responsibility come to the surface, testing the limits of love and control.

From among 2,700 submitted by film schools all over the world, this year’s selection of Ether continues an extraordinary legacy for the NFTS, marking the fifth year in a row that a student film from the School has been featured at La Cinéf. Ether also marks a historic first for the School, as it is the first time a film created by first-year students has been selected for a world premiere at La Cinéf. Since the edition’s creation in 1998, NFTS has had more films selected than any other institution worldwide.

Recent past selections include Bunnyhood (2024), Killing Boris Johnson (2023), Spring Roll Dream (2022) and Other Half (2021), with Ether now joining this prestigious line-up.

Ether was created by NFTS students just four months into their training, with director Vida Skerk, producer Dora Galosi, and screenwriter Niky Pasolini collaborating to develop the script and begin pre-production. Now in their final year at the NFTS, the success of Ether represents a significant milestone for the team of international filmmakers and crew, as they take their first steps toward building careers in the UK film industry while proudly representing their home countries on the global stage.

Writer Niky Pasolini shared the inspiration behind the script’s themes of emotional abuse: “I wanted to explore the challenges of communicating about intimacy, and the nebulous quality of emotionally abusive behaviour. Often, when you’re in over your head in an intensely physical relationship, it can be near impossible to tell up from down; you lose all anchors of reality. I wanted to portray this experience from a woman’s perspective, to carry the audience through her feelings of claustrophobia and doubt, and towards achieving a flash of clarity.”

Director Vida Skerk said of the collaboration: “What stood out in Niky’s script was the simplicity and elegance with which she presented a complex subject. What drew me to this story was its exploration of how patriarchal violence, be it minute or overt, can infiltrate even progressive, ‘modern’, young couples.”

Director Vida Skerk with DOP Adenike Oke. Photo by Kato Boels.
 

Producer Dora Galosi added: “It was very important for us that we were able to make this film with an almost all-female crew, who understood our goal to portray something with the highest level of sensibility.”

NFTS Director Jon Wardle commented: “We are absolutely thrilled that Ether has been selected for La Cinéf at Cannes, and especially proud that it marks the first time a first-year student film has reached this historic milestone. That this honour comes for a film tackling timely and vital themes is a testament to the courage of our students in confronting complex issues and igniting essential conversations through cinema. This achievement speaks volumes about the exceptional talent, bold vision and fearless storytelling nurtured at the NFTS, as well as the world-class training environment we work so hard to provide.”

The 2025 Cannes Film Festival also features several NFTS alumni in major roles behind the camera. Among them is director/co-writer Joachim Trier with his Palme d’Or contender Sentimental Value, edited by fellow graduate Olivier Bugge Coutté, starring Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, and Elle Fanning. In addition, Lynne Ramsay’s Die, My Love, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, helps take the number of female directors in the official selection to a record-breaking seven. Actor and producer Tom Cruise along with his long-time collaborator, director and screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie, and the Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning cast will walk the steps of the Palais des Festivals for the film’s world premiere, which includes an impressive roster of NFTS alumni among its crew.

Ether will premiere at the 28th edition of La Cinéf in Cannes on Thursday 22 May in the Buñuel Theatre.

Explore the full list of NFTS alumni involvement at Festival de Cannes 2025 below:

La Cinéf

Ether
Director Vida Skerk; Writer Niky Pasolini; Producer Dora Galosi; Director of Photography Adenike Oke; Editor Maria Luiza Munhoz; Composer Aizhana Nurkenova; Sound Designer Vicente Molder; 2nd AD Fallon Parker; 3rd AD Tessa Hemmings; Floor Manager Lily Bennett; Production Managers Rasmus Kröger, Jeanet Froidurot; Colorist Fox Bamber Barron; 1st AC Gabrielle Scobie; 2nd AC Tvisha Shah; Camera Loader Jim Wong; Cinebuddy Clint Frift; Additional VFX Shiva Pavaday; Location Sound Recordist Rob Kivits;
Location Sound Recording Assistant Magdalena Matuszek; Script Supervisors John Joyce, Jules Rampton; Production Driver Amber Forster; Set Photographer Kato Boels; Title and Credit Designer Kasey Song

In Competition (Palme d’Or)

Die, My Love
Director/Writer Lynne Ramsay; Assistant Producer Aidan Milburn; Sound Designer Paul Davies
Sentimental Value
Director/Co-Writer Joachim Trier; Editor Olivier Bugge Coutte
The Secret Agent
Editor Eduardo Serrano

Cannes Premiere

Amrum
DoP Karl Walter Lindenlaub
The Wave
Composer Assistant Niklas Sandahl

Un Certain Regard

My Father’s Shadow
DoP Jermaine Edwards; Co-Supervising Sound Editor Adele Fletcher
Pillion
First Assistant Editor Oli Bauer; Post-Production Supervisor Shaheen Schleifer; Casting Associate Sacha Billingham; Production & Development Executive: BFI Phoebe Sutherland; Urchin 2nd Assistant Sound Sam Jenkins; Camera Trainee Dearbhaile Collins

Out of Competition

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning
Art Directors Matt Sharp, Tom Weaving; Art Department Assistant Dominika Rakoczy;
Assistant Art Directors Declan O'Brien, Yasmin Al-Naib; Supervising Dialogue Editor Simon Chase; Compositor: Bluebolt Luke Hardisty; Boom Operator Hosea Ntaborwa; Sound Mixer: Splinter Unit Simon Gill; 2nd Assistant Sound: Splinter Unit Max Riches; Location Coordinator Elodie Taylor; Script Supervisor: Splinter Unit Charlotte Serena Cooper; Crowd Production Assistants Aline Leduc, Lara Mandell; Supervising Payroll Accountant Sarah Gough