Short Com is Dead! Here's the 5 best videos

After nearly four and a half years of screenings up and down the UK, the comedy film programme Short Com will be running its last ever event at the London Hackney Attic on the 12th March - a screening night featuring its 2015 Best of Programme and Awards ceremony.

Short Com has been a platform for emerging talent in independent comedy filmmakers ever since its first screening at the Manchester Frog and Bucket back in late 2011.

Chris Aitken, the founder of Short Com, says it will be sad to see it go. "Personally I never thought it would continue and grow for as long as it has. There was never really a plan put in place, the only aim was to prove a point: that there is a wealth of talent making short form comedic content that is being somewhat ignored by broadcasters.

"I was bowled over by the quality of films I got sent the first time around, and a lot of these people would be supplying Short Com with great content for the next four and a half years. It's been a pleasure to become acquainted with these talented people and see a lot of them enjoying varying successes.

Aitken adds: "We've not had any major funding but the very generous support from the likes of Salford University, Blackmagic Design, Glasgow Short Film Festival and Festival Formula have made Short Com last as long as it has. Throughout, we've managed to keep our heads above water and donate whatever profits we can to suicide prevention charities such as SAMH and CALM."

Chris concludes: "Although I'd love for Short Com to carry on as a screening platform, the time has come for myself to focus upon my own projects. So I hope this final screening will allow us to make a sizeable contribution to CALM and to pay credit to the talent and culture of independent short filmmaking."

BCG asked Chris for list his personal favourite top five videos that Short Com has screened since it started. Taking up the task, he said: "Believe me, it is very hard to narrow it down to five, but here are the films that always make me laugh and had audiences in hysterics."

Dafty - Sensitive Tooth

"Dafty had some of the most original sketches I ever screened, like everyone else on this list I felt they were criminally overlooked by broadcasters."

Hot Gulp - Seabastards

"I remember seeing these guys for the first time at Cofilmic. Their film Chugger for me was the best film of the night yet, bizarrely, was not even nominated for an award. I was in tears when I first viewed Seabastards. Hot Gulp would probably have been the perfect replacement for The League Of Gentlemen if someone had the right instinct to commission them."

Ben Mallaby - Milk

"Potentially the most talented director to have submitted to Short Com, Ben Mallaby got a BAFTA nomination for Island Queen, written by and starring Nat Luurtsema... but Milk is a deliciously dark comical masterpiece written and performed by Toby Williams and Paul F Taylor. It should have been BAFTA nominated this year, if not the winner. Unfortunately the film won't be available online for another year but the trailer shall give you key insight."

Tea and Cheese - Homosexual Activity

"Duo Liam Tate and Jamie Stanton had been clocking up impressive hits on YouTube for their short animation 8-Bit Waterslide, which later turned into a game. But Homosexual Activity demonstrated these guys could were equally adept making live action, as this brilliant quick paced parody satire proves."

Turtle Canyon Comedy - Overactive Solutions

"Turtle Canyon Comedy have managed to feature in every Short Com screening. I can't think of anyone else as prolific as these guys for making short comedy content. Overactive Solutions was a sublime piece of alternative comedy that would have picked up a cult audience for sure, if giving the opportunity."

For details about Short Com's last ever event, visit their website: www.shortcom.co.uk