Saoirse Ronan wins the “Best of British” award at the Encounters Film Festival with her directorial debut “Paper Plane”

The Encounters Film Festival closed its 2026 edition in Bristol with a record year, as Señal News reports: ticket revenue rose by 22 percent compared with the previous record, paid sales rose by 67 percent year on year, while total attendance rose by a third.

The main prize for live-action fiction, the Brief Encounters Grand Prix, went to Altay Ulan Yang’s “Hyena”, selected from more than 5,000 submitted films. Encounters executive director Dave Taylor-Matthews said the jury understood very early that the film was something special and that feeling never changed after “thousands of hours” of viewings and discussions.

In the British categories, actress Saoirse Ronan won “Best of British (Live Action)” for her directorial debut, “Paper Plane”. Ronan said she was thrilled that her film was not only included in the festival selection but also honored with an award, calling Bristol one of her favorite cities in Britain.

Among the other awards, according to Señal News, the animation Grand Prix went to Anna Ginsburg’s “Hag”, while Nazgol Kashani’s animated documentary “Uncle Filmi” took the documentary grand prize. Said Zagha’s “Coyotes” was selected as the British nomination for the European Film Awards, while the audience award went to Tia Salisbury’s “The Devil Is In Me”.