Hannah Ashby Ward

Casting director

Lane Casting

Dave Bullivant creates a stark and brutal vision for rock band Nonexister, as two men are caught up in the advance of an angry mob.Shot on a extremely rare ARRI Alexa Mini Monochrome camera, with a final sequence shot entirely with Ultraviolet light, the action in the video for the Zurich-based band's track Storm (from the just relased debut album Demons) develops within a stylised space - a maze of chainlink fencing - which splits the main protagonists. It's a powerful visual metaphor on the dangerous lure of political extremism, particularly the far right."This track eloquently speaks about the dangers of the rise of extremism in its various guises, and how easily people can be sucked into a situation that maybe they will later regret," explains Bullivant. "So often, the lure of community, power and acceptance can override one’s sense of morality and moral compass. I wanted to abstract this notion, and portray the struggle of two friends who encounter a braying mob."We shot the video in black and white using one of only two cameras in the world, and no one had ever shot using only ultraviolet light before. So the final scene was definitely a foray into the unknown..."

Switzerland

Dave Bullivant

Jeanna Koba

Dynamic Frame

Adam Scarth

Luzius Fischer

Ciaran Beale

Jodie Davidson

Picture Shop

Rory Wilson

Alex Houston

Rock

Alternative

Nonexister 'Storm' by Dave Bullivant

NONEXISTER - Storm (Official Video)

Directing duo Nono+Rodrigo direct a haunting promo for up and coming Spanish artist Judeline.&nbsp;The video for Mangata is a hazy, hallucinatory trip, dripping with religious iconography and a disquieting sense of dread.&nbsp;From dramatic character study to plaintive silence and mysterious house party, the video spans a range of evocative scenes that build upon the pulsating track. A beautifully crafted work which brings Nono + Rodirgo triumphantly back into the music video orbit.[imgtoken data:1]"There is something magnetic in Judeline - in her music, her lyrics, and her presence - something that strongly captivated us when, in 2021, we started talking about working together," says Nono, one half of the directing team."We shot this in Cadiz, where Judeline and I come from. {It's] a&nbsp;magical place full of tales and mystery. Being inspired by the local culture and folk and merging them with references of our favorite directors such as Zulawski, Erice, and Polanski and the photographers Pérez Siquier, Esperanza Manzanera, and García Rodero."

Spain

Pilar Angulo

Noreen Khan

Nono + Rodrigo

Laura Cusí

Júlia Estruga

Blur

Partizan

Ferrán Grau

Michal Babinec

Sara Nix

Zico Judge

Blanca Blanca

Alberto Ojeda

Ricardo Aguilar Roldán

Manel Losada

Cecilia López

Cristian Díaz

Candela Capitán

Carolina Galiana

Sandro Igon

Julia Galera

Thomas Grove Carter

Trim Editing

Dante Pasquinelli

Ethos Studio

Nat Tereshchenko

La Remedios

Nourdin Batan

Lara Fernández

Interscope Records

Top Dawg Entertainment

Dance

Judeline 'Mangata' by Nono + Rodrigo

Judeline-'Mangata'-by-Nono-+-Rodrigo

Oscar-nominated director Colm Bairéad directs an evocative promo for PJ Harvey, featuring acclaimed actor Ruth Wilson.&nbsp;The video for Seem An I features Wilson, running across a rural field&nbsp;in slow motion. A simple but strong&nbsp;idea, from the director of Irish language drama&nbsp;The Quiet Girl,&nbsp;nominated for Best Film in a Foreign Language at&nbsp;the Academy Awards in 2023, that is invested with mystery and drama by the presence of Wilson.And while the reasons for her flight&nbsp;are left to the viewer's imagination, the urgency and camerawork complements the power in Harvey's music, and builds to a powerful cliffhanger ending. Breathtaking work.[imgtoken data:1]&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Gus Sharpe

Colm Bairéad

Ella Woolgar

MrMr

John Moule

Kate Mccullough

Katie Lambert

Rosie Brear

Freddie Wright

Sara Faulkner

Homespun

Ruth Wilson

Partisan Records

PJ Harvey 'Seem An I' by Colm Bairéad

Pj-Harvey--'Seem-An-I-'-by-Colm-Bairéad

Alasdair McLellan revisits Sheffield in the early 90s for his video for the Pet Shop Boys' Loneliness - from the duo's forthcoming album Nonetheless - a coming of age story set among a group of young friends and lovers.&nbsp;It's something to behold. McLellan brings the unmistakeable tenor of his fashion photography into the space of classic British narrative drama. He&nbsp;asks the viewer to buy into a different way of absorbing a story and characters we might expect from the likes of Shane Meadows - or from an earlier era, the British new wave of the 60s - and does so with complete conviction.None of the bright blue skies for which he's renowned here, but McLellan presents all the other beauty that South Yorkshire has to offer - with the help of a team including DoP Lex Kembery,&nbsp;casting director Hannah Ward Ashby at Lane Casting, editor Alexandros Pissourios and&nbsp;colourist Jamie Noble at Studio RM.It works because at its core, it's a compelling story of a young man carving his way in the face of the societal norms of his class, culture and the times. He is a&nbsp;closeted queer boy in a straight world, engaged in a double existence. It leads him into unsettling level of deception, of an adoring girlfriend and possibly himself, but McLellan does not shy away from the excitement of his sexual encounters.As a video for this lovely new Pet Shop Boys track&nbsp;- and the legendary duo make a surprising appearance towards the end of the film - the overall effect is poignant, nostalgic and romantic. But it may draw out a whole variety of emotions from anyone watching it, and although it may not be everyone's cup of (Yorkshire) tea, that makes it a very good thing indeed.

United Kingdom

Alasdair McLellan

Jamie Noble

Studio RM

Alexandros Pissourios

Lex Kembery

Partner Films

Kimberly Arms

Cara Gillies

Alice Goddard

Laurence Walker

Phoebe Taylor

Jackie Tyson

Phoebe Shakespeare

Phoebe Williams-Ellis

Tom Katter

Cinelab Film and Digital

Imran Malik

Art Partner

Electronic

Alt-Pop

Pet Shop Boys 'Loneliness' by Alasdair McLellan

Pet Shop Boys - Loneliness (Official Video)

Dave Bullivant directs a stirring promo for Zurich alt-rock outfit NONEXISTER, employing&nbsp;a clever plot device to tell a story of victim blaming, touching&nbsp;on racism, police brutality and the patriarchy.The video for How Do You Dare opens&nbsp;with the main character - played by Selina Jones - pinned to the floor surrounded by police. The video then plays out in reverse, giving context to the scene whilst challenging our first assumptions of what is going on.&nbsp;It's a poignant, important video, which uses the reverse-motion technique in an inspired way, and leads&nbsp;to a harrowing climax that is an unfortunate everyday reality for many in society.&nbsp;[imgtoken data:1]

Anna MacDonald

Jason Wallis

Electric Theatre Collective

Selina Jones

NONEXISTER 'How Do You Dare' by Dave Bullivant

Non-Exister-'How-Do-You-Dare'-by-Dave-Bullivant

Directing duo Pensacola have created a breathtaking spectacle for The Chemical Brothers' latest collab with Beck - featuring stone-skimming champion Kurt Steiner.It's not always advisable to go literal on a songtitle. In fact, it rarely is. But it's exactly the right move here, as the CANADA-signed directors&nbsp;chart the unstoppable path of a perfect skimming stone, delivered from the hand of the enigmatic, cool-looking Steiner, who's every&nbsp;director's dream of what a professional stone skimmer should look like.[imgtoken data:1]&nbsp;This stone skims across a lake then shoots into the forest and roads beyond like a missile, passing through people's lives, reaching the city to cause considerable havoc and destruction.In fact it appears to have a mind of its own, and an interlude suggests it originally came from outer space - and finally it soars meteor-like over the landscape.Filmed in&nbsp;Lithuania at the end of August, shot by Christopher Ripley, with VFX at Mathematic in Paris, it's a cinematic blockbuster (or rockbuster?) that sits among great Chemical Brothers videos with&nbsp;a real flavour all its own.[imgtoken data:2]And it's release was very well timed to coincide with the <a href="https://www.stoneskimming.com/" target="_blank">World Stone Skimming Championships</a> last month. And <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02954-2" target="_blank">NASA's mission to bring rock dust from an asteroid&nbsp;back to Earth</a>...&nbsp;[imgtoken data:3]&nbsp;&nbsp;

Miranda Lorenz

Pensacola

Adam Farley

Davey Ahern

CANADA

Ailsa Robertson

Christopher Ripley

Callum Harrison

Indre Siupinyte

Asta Rizgeliene

Monika Solomine

Emiliano Serantoni

Mathematic

Kurt Steiner

Hands 

The Chemical Brothers, Beck 'Skipping Like A Stone' by Pensacola

The-Chemical-Brothers,-Beck--'Skipping-Like-A-Stone'-by-Pensacola

Lucy Knox directs an intimate portrait of life on the Isle of Sheppey, in this&nbsp;tender promo for Australian band DMA's.&nbsp;Shot with a crew of four at the start of the year, the video is a charming exploration of people and place, following a central narrative with accompanying portrait vignettes of different residents.&nbsp;Exploring the complex relationship between a father and his daughter, the video is one that really pulls at the heartstrings, and the docu-style aesthetic helps convey a story that is both personal and universally relatable.&nbsp;A masterclass in blending narrative and documentary elements, and a very well executed video indeed.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Australia

Margherita Alaimo

Lucy Knox

Sandrus Wilson

Tina Ldn

I Oh You

Nathan Rubins

Henry Lockyer

Charlotte Skeate

Rebecca Richards

Leila Gaabi

The Editors

Matt Fezz

Nick Bartlett

Natasha Atkinson

Indie Rock

DMA's 'Forever' by Lucy Knox

Dma's-'Forever'-by-Lucy-Knox

On your&nbsp;marks, get set... go euphoric, with Fa &amp; Fon's hypnotically zany video for Georgia.The California-via-London artist is back with new single It's Euphoric, and the directing duo make her the star of her own wonderfully strange, uber-stylised world&nbsp;set in a the world's coolest athletics track.Georgia joins a intriguing cast of characters in a race around the track, where her competitors are weighed down with anxiety, and their devotion to Fashion.&nbsp;And soon the visual echoes of their bodies warp and glitch intermittently.It's a wonderfully vibrant, idiosyncratic vision, where Georgia stands at the pretention-pricking centre of a memorable clash of inventive styling and cool FX.&nbsp;Every shot works to reinforce its whimisical distinctiveness, yet Georgia emerges as the hero, both part of and apart from the surrounding lunacy.&nbsp;&nbsp;It's&nbsp;arguably the most impressive outing in music videos by the Watkins sisters - aka Fa &amp; Fon -&nbsp;so far.&nbsp;[imgtoken data:1]&nbsp;[imgtoken data:2][imgtoken data:3]

Ellie Beale

Troy Smith

Dan Hills

Innes Woo

Fa and Fon

Rachel Bashford

Riff Raff Films

Phil Lee

Ryan Delahunty

Ahmet Hüsseyin

Laura Clayton

Alexander Miguel-guerreiro

Ty Hack

Robert Barlow

Samuel Harding

Max Edmed

Gabriel Healy

Laura Vallejo

Rapahel Arcadios

Lainy Black

The Assembly Rooms

Katie Dymmock 

The Mill

Domino Recordings

Sebastian Foux

Georgia 'It's Euphoric' by Fa & Fon

Georgia - It's Euphoric (Official Video)

An intense, grotesque, extraordinary&nbsp;video for Slowthai by directing collective Crowns &amp; Owls.With great cinematography by Jack Exton and terrific grade by Tim Smith that punches the richness of the colours to the max, this has a hyperreal visual aesthetic as visceral as this powerful track&nbsp;deserves, without sinking into darkness.But at the heart is the performance of Tyron Frampton&nbsp;(aka Slowthai) himself, which is remarkable. It's a visible howl of anguish and pain, but still with that unmistakeable chink of impudence and humour.

Crowns & Owls

Javier Alejandro

Noir

Theo Hue Williams

Ella Kenny

Jack Exton

Mike Linforth

Ky Brasey

Greg Probert

Lyndon Ogbourne

Frankie Noller

Karla Quinoniz-Leon

Tim Smith

No.8

Pendulum

John Holloway

Edit Egg

Amanda Dann

Slowthai 'Yum' by Crowns & Owls

slowthai - Yum (Official Video)

The Director's Cut of Marc Oller's video for Arlo Parks' Weightless arrives, and adds weight to the symbolism around a story of a&nbsp;couple falling out of love.Oller employs powerful visual metaphors to tell the tale, which are given free rein in this version: Arlo in a car with no driver, a house breaking apart, cars crashing, and perhaps most powerfully of all,&nbsp;a wild horse having escaped from its captor, running free&nbsp;in the city.Within these scenes, Parks herself comes across strongly, performing the song which is the first release from her forthcoming album, My Soft Machine - the anticipated follow-up to her Brit and Mercury Prize-winning debut Collapsed In Sunbeams.[imgtoken data:1]Shot in Serbia last December, Oller says that ‘’we followed the brief of how a lover gets tethered to the idea of someone, either to how good it felt at the beginning or how close things are to looking up, whilst also wanting to present Arlo in a way that her fans had not seen before." He adds that this presented various challenges on the shoot, particularly due to bad weather affecting the production."We had to recreate the exact same room we were shooting in an apartment, then wreck it with a bulldozer," he says. "The construction team was outstanding."[imgtoken data:2]So was the horse, called Asa - who is a magnificent presence in the video, captured wonderfully by DoP Zach Spiger and his team. "Asa was a great actress - we all fell in love with her and she actually made our lives easy," says Oller. "Unfortunately, it was raining heavily and the shoot was constantly interrupted by the storm. This tightened our schedule and we had to sacrifice many shots that we had planned on shooting."&nbsp;Shot on film, which also presented challenges in terms of finding the right kit for "an old school kind of shoot", Oller adds that he was supported by both familiar and new collaborators to achieve his goals.[imgtoken data:3]"They were all amazingly talented and invested in the project," he declares. "Zack Spiger is an old collaborator - we shot a short film back in the day when I lived in Tokyo; Vicki Viñas is one of my longest time collaborators and she’s an outstanding art director and has the best taste; Alberto Ojeda is one of the best steadicam operators in Spain; and Ana Cano is my oldest collaborator and my ‘go-to’ for hair and makeup."And I loved working with our new Head of Music Videos at CANADA, Callum Harrison, who always challenged me to keep pushing the boundaries of creativity and was a great support."[imgtoken data:4]