Freddie Fox’s bold, time-spanning short film The Painting & The Statue featuring an acclaimed cast including Mark Gatiss (Sherlock), Tanya Reynolds (Sex Education), and Asim Chaudhry (Barbie) has been officially selected for the 2025 HollyShorts Film Festival, an Academy Award®-qualifying event and one of the world’s premier showcases for short filmmaking.
It is produced by Kαrimα Sammout Kanellopoulou through her BAFTA-nominated company, Galazia Productions, and executive produced by Academy Award® winner Chris Overton (The Silent Child) and Slick Films, alongside Fox’s own Brandy Bay Productions.
Told from a single room across 250 years of history, The Painting & The Statue is a visually inventive, emotionally resonant tale about two works of art — a painting and a statue — trapped in the same space, aware of each other’s existence, yet forever unable to meet. As the world changes around them, from the spoils of the 19th-century empire, through decadent Bright Young Thing parties, midnight Nazi bombings, and into the sterile halls of a modern-day museum reckoning with its colonial past, the silent observers remain unmoving, unseen, yet ever-watchful. Until, one day, by pure chance, their eyes meet, and for a fleeting, magical moment, the centuries melt away.
The film features a standout cast of celebrated British talent including Mark Gatiss (Sherlock, The League of Gentlemen), Tanya Reynolds (Sex Education, Emma), Asim Chaudhry (People Just Do Nothing, Barbie), Nathan Stewart Jarrett (Femme, Culprits), Fenella Woolgar (Bright Young Things, Call the Midwife), and rising stars Will Merrick, Andy Monaghan, and Hannah Onslow. Across 22 characters played by just six actors, the film distills an epic narrative into an intimate theatrical experience, captured (almost entirely) in just two camera angles.
Freddie Fox, already well known for his acclaimed acting career on stage (Travesties, Hamlet) and screen (Slow Horses, The Great, House of the Dragon), made his directorial debut with the short film Hero, which won the Directorial Discovery Award at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. The Painting & The Statue is his most ambitious project to date, and was developed and produced by his company, Brandy Bay Productions. Brandy Bay is currently working in co-production with The Kenneth Branagh Company on a feature documentary about British theatre, directed and produced by Fox, and featuring appearances from Dame Judi Dench, Sir Ian McKellen, Dame Helen Mirren, Gary Oldman, and Eddie Redmayne.
The film’s artistry is further elevated by a powerhouse creative team including Ryan Eddleston (Director of Photography, Prevenge, Timestalker), Annie Symons (Costume Designer, BAFTA winner, Worried About The Boy), Jules Chapman (Makeup Designer, Loki, The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare), Violet Elliot (Production Designer, The Great, Enola Holmes 2), and Arthur Pita (Choreographer, Ex Machina, Sunshine On Leith).
“This story is about isolation, connection, and the passage of time,” says Fox. “It’s a timeless love story, but told from a perspective we don’t usually get to see, or even imagine. I’m deeply proud of the incredible team that brought it to life, and thrilled to premiere it at HollyShorts.”
The HollyShorts Film Festival takes place August 8–17, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Recognized as a launching pad for the next generation of filmmakers, the festival is an important platform for Oscar® consideration and global discovery.
